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jl-itarary of Gongrese 

Two Copies Received 
AUG 18 1900 

Copyright entry 

SECOND COPY. 

Oeiwerod to 

OftOER DIVISION, 

■ M lfi 27 190U 






Copyright, 1900, by W. B. Conkey Company. 



68770 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE, 

Stanzas 7 

Toussaint L'Ouverture , '. 13 

The Yankee Girl 24 

To William Lloyd Garrison 28 

To the Memory of Charles B. Storrs, late President 

of Western Reserve College 30 

Song of the Free 34 

The Hunters of Men .\ 37 

To Governor M'Duffie 41 

Lines, written on reading "Right and Wrong in 

Boston' ' 45 

To G. B. , Esq. , author of the Worcester Democratic 

Address 48 

To the Memory of Thomas Shipley 51 

The Slave Ships 54 

Stanzas for the Times 61 

Lines, written on reading the spirited and manly 

Remarks of Governor Ritner, of Pennsylvania, in 

his Message of 1836, on the subject of Slavery 65 

Hymn, written for the Meeting of the Anti-Slavery 

Society, at Chatham Street Chapel, N. Y., held on 

tlje 4th of the Seventh month, 1834 7<^ 

3 



4 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

PAGE. 

Hymn, written for the Celebration of the Third Anni- 
versary of British Emancipation, at the Broadway 

Tabernacle, N. Y., "First of August," 1837 72 

Clerical Oppressors 74 

Lines, written on the Adoption of Pinckney's Resolu- 
tions, in the House of Representatives, and the pas- 
sage of Calhoun's "Bill of Abominations" to a Sec- 
ond Reading, in the Senate of the United States. . 77 
Lines, on the Death of S. Oliver Torrey, Secretary 

of the Boston Young Men's Anti-Slavery Society. . 81 
Lines, written on reading the famous "Pastoral Let- 
ter" of the Massachusetts General Association, 

1837 84 

The Moral Warfare 90 

Massachusetts 92 

The Farewell of a Virginia Slave-mother to her 

Daughters, sold into Southern Bondage 96 

Address, written for the Opening of "Pennsylvania 
Hall," dedicated to Free Discussion, Virtue, Lib- 
erty, and Independence, on the 15th of the Fifth 
month, 1838 99 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Palestine 109 

Christ in the Tempest 114 

The Female Martyr 117 

"Knowest thou the Ordinances of Heaven?" Job 

xxxviii, 33 121 

Hymn (from the French of Lamartine) 123 

From the French of Lamartine 127 



CONTENTS. 5 

PAGE. 

The Familist's Hymn 130 

The Call of the Christian , 135 

The Frost Spirit 138 

The Worship of Nature 140 

Lines, written in the Commonplace Book of a Young 

Lady 142 

The Watcher 146 

The Cities of the Plain 152 

The Crucifixion 155 

The City of Refuge 153 

Isabella of Austria 160 

Lines, written on visiting a singular Cave in Chester, 

N. H 166 

The Fratricide 169 

Suicide Pond 173 

The Fountain 177 

Pentucket 183 

The Missionary 187 

Stanzas, suggested by the Letter of a Friend. 198 

Lines on a Portrait 201 

Stanzas , . . ^ 203 

To the Memory of J. O. Rockwell 206 

The Unquiet Sleeper 209 

Metacom 212 

The Murdered Lady 219 

The Weird Gathering 223 

The Black Fox 233 

The White Mountains 241 

The Indian's Tale 244 

The Spectre Ship 248 

The Spectre Warriors 254 

The Last Norridgewock 257 



6 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

PAGE. 

The Aerial Omens 263 

Mogg Megone 269 

The Vaudois Teacher 321 

The Prisoner for Debt 324 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



STANZAS. 



"The despotism which our fathers could not bear in 
their native country is expiring, and the sword of jus- 
tice in her reformed hands has applied its exterminating 
edge to slavery. Shall the United States — the free 
United States, which could not bear the bonds of a king, 
cradle the bondage which a king is abolishing? Shall a 
Republic be less free than a Monarchy? Shall we, in 
the vigor and buoyancy of our manhood, be less ener- 
getic in righteousness than a kingdom in its age?" — Dr. 
Pollen's Address. 

"Genius of America ! — Spirit of our free institutions ! — 
where art thou? How art thou fallen, O Lucifer! son of 
the morning— how art thou fallen from Heaven ! Hell 
from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy 
coming ! The kings of the earth cry out to thee. Aha ! 
Aha! — art thou become like unto us!'* — Speech of 
Samuel J. May. 

Our fellow-countrymen in chains! 

Slaves — in a land, of light and law ! 
Slaves — crouching on the very plains 

Where roU'd the storm of Freedom's war! 

7 



8 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

A groan from Eutaw's haunted wood — 
A wail where Camden's martyrs fell — 

By every shrine of patriot blood, 
From Moultrie's wall and Jasper's well! 

By storied hill and hallow'd grot, 

By mossy wood and marshy glen, 
Whence rang of old the rifle-shot, 

And hurrying shout of Marion's men! 
The groan of breaking hearts is there — 

The falling lash — the fetter's clank ! 
Slaves — slaves are breathing in that air. 

Which old De Kalb and Sumter drank ! 

What, ho ! — our countrymen in chains ! 

The whip on woman's shrinking flesh! 
Our soil reddening with the stains, 

Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh ! 
What! mothers from their children riven! 

What! God's own image bought and sold! 
Americans to market driven, 

And barter 'd as the brute for gold! 

Speak! shall their agony of prayer 
Come thrilling to our hearts in vain 

To us, whose fathers scorn 'd to bear 
The paltry menace of a chain ; 

To us, whose boast is loud and long 
Of holy Liberty and Light — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 9 

Say, shall these writhing slaves of wrong, 
Plead vainly for their plunder 'd Right? 

What! shall we send, with lavish breath. 

Our sympathies across the wave, 
When Manhood, on the field of death. 

Strikes for his freedom, or a grave? 
Shall prayers go up, and hymns be sung 

For Greece, the Moslem fetter spurning. 
And millions hail with pen and tongue 

Our light on all her altars burning? 

Shall Belgium feel, and gallant France, 

By Vendome'spile and vSchoenbrun's wall, 
And Poland, gasping on her lance . 

The impulse of our cheering call? 
And shall the slave, beneath our eye, 

Clank o'er our fields his hateful chain? 
And toss his fetter'd arms on high. 

And groan for Freedom's gift, in vain? 

Oh, say, shall Prussia's banner be 

A refuge for the stricken slave? 
And shall the Russian serf go free 

By Baikal's lake and Neva's wave? 
And shall the wintry-bosom 'd Dane 

Relax the iron hand of pride, 
And bid his bondmen cast the chain, 

From fetter'd soul and limb, aside? 



10 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Shall every flap of England's flag 

Proclaim that all around are free, 
From ^'farthest Ind" to each blue crag 

That beetles o'er the Western Sea? 
And shall we scoff at Europe's kings, 

When Freedom's fire is dim with us, 
And round our country's altar clings 

The damning shade of Slavery's curse? 

Go — let us ask of Constantine 

To loose his grasp on Poland's throat; 
And beg the lord of Mahmoud's line 

To spare the struggling Suliote — 
Will not the scorching answer come 

From turban *d Turk, and fiery Russ: 
*'Go, loose your fetter 'd slaves at home. 

Then turn, and ask the like of us!" 

Just God ! and shall we calmly rest. 

The Christian's scorn — the Heathen's 
mirth — 
Content to live the lingering jest 

And by-word of a mocking Earth? 
Shall our own glorious land retain 

That curse which Europe scorns to bear? 
Shall our own brethren drag the chain 

Which not even Russia's menials wear? 

Up, then, in Freedom's manly part. 
From gray-beard eld to fiery youth, 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 11 

And on the nation's naked heart 
Scatter the living coals of Truth! 

Up — while ye slumber, deeper yet 
The shadow of our fame is growing ! 

Up— while ye pause, our sun may set 
In blood, around our altars flowing ! 

Oh! rouse ye, ere the storm comes forth — 

The gather' d wrath of God and man — 
Like that which wasted Egypt's earth, 

When hail and fire above it ran. 
Hear ye no warnings in the air? 

Feel ye no earthquake underneath? 
Up — up — why will ye slumber where 

The sleeper only wakes in death? 

Up now for freedom — not in strife 

Like that your sterner fathers saw — 
The awful waste of human life — 

The glory and the guilt of war: 
But break the chain — the yoke remove, 

And smite to earth Oppression's rod. 
With those mild arms of Truth and Love, 

Made mighty through the living God! 

Down let the shrine of Moloch sink, 
And leave no traces where it stood ; 

Nor longer let its idol drink 
His daily cup of human blood: 



12 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

But rear another altar there, 

To Truth and Love and Mercy given, 

And Freedom's gift, and Freedom's prayer, 
Shall call an answer down from Heaven ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 13 



TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE. 

Toussaint L'Ouverture, the black chieftain of Hayti, 
was a slave on the plantation "de Libertas," belong- 
ing to M. Bayou. When the rising of the negroes took 
place, in 1791, Toussaint refused to join them, until he 
had aided M. Bayou and his family to escape to Balti- 
more. The white man had discovered in Toussaint 
many noble qualities, and had instructed him in some 
of the first branches of education ; and the preservation 
of his life was owing to the negro's gratitude for this 
kindness. 

In 1797, Toussaint I'Ouverture was appointed, by the 
French government, General-in-Chief of the armies of 
St. Domingo, and, as such, signed the convention with 
General Maitland, for the evacuation of the island by 
the British. From this period until 1801, the island, 
under the government of Toussaint, was happy, tran- 
quil, and prosperous. The miserable attempt of Napo- 
leon to re-establish slavery in St. Domingo, although it 
failed of its intended object, proved fatal to the negro 
chieftain. Treacherously seized by Le Clerc, he was 
hurried on board a vessel by night, and conveyed to 
France, where he was confined in a cold subter- 
ranean dungeon, at Besancon, where, in April, 1803, he 
died. The treatment of Toussaint finds a parallel only 
in the murder of the Duke d'Enghien. It was the re- 
mark of Godwin, in his Lectures, that the West India 
islands, since their first discovery by Columbus, could 



n WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

not boast of a single name which deserves comparison 
with that of Toussaint I'Ouverture. 

The moon was up. One general smile 
Was resting on the Indian isle — 
Mild, pure, ethereal ; rock and wood, 
In searching sunshine, wild and rude, 
Rose, mellow 'd through the silver gleam, 
Soft as the landscape of a dream. 
All motionless and dewy wet. 
Tree, vine, and flower in shadow met : 
The myrtle with its snowy bloom, 
Crossing the nightshade's solemn gloom — 
The white crecopia's silver rind 
Relieved by deeper green behind, — 
The orange with its fruit of gold, 
The lithe paullinia's verdant fold, — 
The passion flower, with symbol holy, 
Tv/ining its tendrils long and lowly, — 
The rhexias dark,, and cassia tall, 
And, proudly rising over all, 
The kingly palm's imperial stem, 
Crown 'd with its leafy diadem, — 
Star-like, beneath whose somber shade 
The fiery- winged cucullo play'd! 

Yes — lovely was thine aspect then, 
Fair island of the Western Sea ! 
Lavish of beauty, even when 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 15 

Thy brutes were happier than thy men, 

For they, at least, were free ! 
Regardless of thy glorious clime. 

Unmindful of thy soil of flowers, 
The toiling negro sigh'd, that Time 

No faster sped his hours. 
For, by the dewy moonlight still, 
He fed the weary-turning mill, 
Or bent him in the chill morass, 
To pluck the long and tangled grass, 
And hear above his scar-worn back 
The heavy slave-whip's frequent crack; 
While in his heart one evil thought 
In solitary madness wrought, — 
One baleful fire surviving still 

The quenching of th' immortal mind- 
One sterner passion of his kind. 
Which even fetters could not kill, — 
The savage hope, to deal, ere long, 
A vengeance bitterer than his wrong! 

Hark to that cry !— long, loud and shrill, 
From field and forest, rock and hill. 
Thrilling and horrible it rang. 

Around, beneath, above; — 
The wild beast from his cavern sprang — 

The wild bird from her grove ! 
Nor fear, nor joy, nor agony 



16 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Were mingled in that midnight cry ; 
But, like the lion's growl of wrath, 
When falls that hunter in his path, 
Whose barbed arrow, deeply set, 
Is rankling in his bosom yet. 
It told of haite, full, deep and strong, — 
Of vengeance kindling out of wrong; 
It was as if the crimes of years — 
The unrequited toil — the tears — 
The shame and hate, which liken well 
Earth's garden to the nether Hell, 
Had found in Nature's self a tongue, 
On which the gather' d horror hung; 
As if from cliff, and stream, and glen. 
Burst, on the startled ears of men, 
That voice which rises unto God, 
Solemn and stern — the cry of blood! 

It ceased — and all was still once more, 
Save ocean chafing on his shore, 
The sighing of the wind between 
The broad banana's leaves of green. 
Or bough by restless plumage shook, 
Or murmuring voice of mountain brook. 

Brief was the silence. Once again 
Peal'd to the skies that frantic yell — 

Glow'd on the heavens a fiery stain. 
And flashes rose and fell 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 17 

And, painted on the blood-red sky, 
Dark, naked arms were toss'd on high ; 
And, round the white man's lordly halls, 

Trode, fierce and free, the brute he made; 
And those who crept along the wall, 
And answer'd to his lightest call 

With more than spaniel dread — 
The creatures of his lawless beck — 
Were trampling on his very neck ! 
And, on the night-air, wild and clear, 
Rose woman's shriek of more than fear; 
For bloodied arms were round her thrown, 
And dark cheeks press'd against her own! 

Then, injured Af ric ! — for the shame 
Of thy own daughters, vengeance came 
Full on the scornful hearts of those, 
Who mock'd thee in thy nameless woes, 
And to thy hapless children gave 
One choice — pollution, or the grave ! 
Dark-brow'd Toussaint! — The storm had 
risen 

Obedient to his master-call — 
The Negro's mind had burst its prison — 

His hand its iron thrall ! 
Yet where was he, whose fiery zeal 
First taught the trampled heart to feel, 
Until Despair itself grew strong, 



18 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

And Vengeance fed its torch from wrong? 
Now — when the thunder-bolt is speeding ; 
Now — when oppression's heart is bleeding; 
Now — when the latent curse of time 

Is raining down, in fire and blood — 
That curse which, through long years of 
crime 

Has gather'd, drop by drop, its flood — 
Why strikes he not, the foremost one, 
Where Murder's sternest deeds are done? 

He stood the aged palms beneath, 

That shadow'd o'er his humble door, 
Listening, with half-suspended breath, 
To the wild sounds of fear and death — 

Toussaint I'Ouverture ! 
What marvel that his heart beat high ! 

The blow for freedom had been given; 
And blood had answer'd to the cry 

Which earth sent up to Heaven ! 
What marvel, that a fierce delight 
Smiled grimly o'er his brow of night, 
As groan, and shout, and bursting flame, 
Told where the midnight tempest came, 
With blood and fire along its van. 
And death behind! — he was a MAN! 

Yes, dark-soul'd chieftain! — if the light 
Of mild Religion's heavenly ray 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 19 

Unveiled not to thy mental sight 

The lowlier and the purer way, 
In which the Holy Sufferer trod, 

Meekly amidst the sons of crime, — 
That calm reliance upon God 

For Justice, in His own good time, — 
That gentleness, to which belongs 

Forgiveness for its many wrongs 
Even as the primal martyr, kneeling 
For mercy on the evil-dealing, — 
Let not the favor'd white man name 
Thy stern appeal, with words of blame. 
Has he not, with the light of Heaven 

Broadly around him, made the same? — 
Yea, on a thousand war-fields striven, 

And gloried in his open shame? 
Kneeling amidst his brothers' blood. 
To offer mocker}?* unto God, 
As if the High and Holy One 
Could smile on deeds of murder done! 
As if a human sacrifice 
Were purer in His holy eyes, 
Though offer'd up by Christian hands, 
Than the foul rites of Pagan lands ! 
***** 

Sternl}^, amidst his household band, 
His carbine grasp 'd within his hand, 

The white man stood, prepared and stilly 



20 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Waiting the shock of madden 'd men, 
Unchain'd, and fierce as tigers, when 

The horn winds through their cavern 'd 
hill. 
And one was weeping in his sight, — 

The fairest flower of all the isle, — 
The bride who seem'd but yesternight 

The image of a smile. 
And, clinging to her trembling knee, 
Look'd up the form of infancy, 
With tearful glance in either face, 
The secret of its fear to trace. 

'*'Ha — stand, or die!" The white man's eye 
His steady musket gleam 'd along, 

.i^s a tall Negro hasten'd nigh. 
With fearless step and strong. 

' "What, ho, Toussaint!" A moment more, 
His shadow cross'd the lighted floor. 
"Away," he shouted; "fl)^ with me, — 
The white man's bark is on the sea;— 
Her sails must catch the seaward wind, 
W'QT sudden vengeance sweeps behind. 

•Our brethren from their graves have spoken, 

"The yoke is spurn'd — the chain is broken ; 

'€)n all the hills our fires are glowing — 
Through all the vales red blood is flowing I 
No more the mocking White shall rest 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 21 

His foot upon the Negro's breast; 
No more, at morn or eve, shall drip 
The warm blood from the driver's whip: — 
Yet, though Toussaint has vengeance sworn 
For all the wrongs his race have borne, — 
Though for each drop of Negro blood, 
The white man's veins shall pour a flood; 
Not all alone the sense of ill 
Around his heart is lingering still, 
Nor deeper can the white man feel 
The generous warmth of grateful zeal. 
Friends of the Negro ! fly with me — 
The path is open to the sea: 
Away for life!" — He spoke, and press'd 
The young child to his manly breast, 
As, headlong, through the cracking cane 
Down swept the dark insurgent train — 
Drunken and grim — with shout and yell 
Howl'd through the dark, like sounds from 
hell! 

Far out, in peace, the white man's sail 
Sway'd free before the sunrise gale. 
Cloud-like that island hung afar. 

Along the bright horizon's verge, 
O'er which the curse of servile war 

Roll'd its red torrent, surge on surge. 
And he — the Negro champion — where, 

In the fierce tumult, struggled he? 



22 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Go trace him by the fiery glare 
Of dwellings in the midnight air — 
The yells of triumph and despair — 
The streams that crimson to the sea! 

Sleep calmly in thy dungeon- tomb, 

Beneath Besan^on's alien sky, 

Dark Haytien! — for the time shall come,- 

Yea, even now is nigh — 

When, everywhere, thy name shall be 

Redeem'd from color's infamy; 

And men shall learn to speak of thee, 

As one of earth's great spirits, born 

In servitude, and nursed in scorn, 

Casting aside the weary weight 

And fetters of its low estate. 

In that strong majesty of soul, 

Which knows no color, tongue, or clime- 
Which still hath spurn 'd the base control 

Or tyrants through all time ! 
Far other hands than mine may wreath 
The laurel round thy brow of death. 
And speak thy praise, as one whose word 
A thousand fiery spirits stirr'd, — 
Who crush 'd his foeman as a worm — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Whose step on human hearts fell firm : — * 
Be mine the better task to find 
A tribute for thy lofty mind, 

Amidst whose gloomy vengeance shone 
Some milder virtues all thine own, — 
Some gleams of feeling pure and warm, 
Like sunshine on a sky of storm, — 
Proofs that the Negro's heart retains 
Some nobleness amidst its chains, — 
That kindness to the wrong' d is never 

Without its excellent reward, — 
Holy to human-kind, and ever 

Acceptable to God. 



*The reader may, perhaps, call to mind the beautiful sonnet of 
William Wordsworth, addressed to Toussaint TOuverture, dur* 
ing his confinement in France. 

Toussaint! thou most unhappy man of men! 

Whether the whistling rustic tends his plow 

Within thy hearing, or thou liest now 
Buried in some deep dungeon's earless den; 
Oh, miserable chieftain!— where and when 

Wilt thou find patience?— Yet, die not; do thou 

Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow; 
Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, 
Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind 

Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies— 
There's not a breathing of the common wind 

That will forget thee: thou has great allies. 
Thy friends are exultations, agonies, 

And love, and man's unconquerable mind." 



24 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



THE YANKEE GIRL. 

She sings by her wheel, at that low cottage- 
door, 

Which the long evening shadow is stretching 
before, 

With a music as sweet as the music which 
seems 

Breathed softly and faint in the ear of our 
dreams ! 

How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye, 
Like a star glancing out from the blue of the 

sky ! 
And lightly and freely her dark tresses play 
O'er a brow and a bosom as lovely as they! 

Who comes in his pride to that low cottage- 
door — 

The haughty and rich to the humble and poor? 

*Tis the great Southern planter— the master 
who waves 

His whip of dominion o'er hundreds of slaves. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 25 

**Nay, Ellen — for shame! Let those Yankee 

fools spin, 
Who would pass for our slaves with a change 

of their skin ; 
Let them toil as they will at the loom or the 

wheel, 
Too stupid for shame, and too vulgar to feel ! 

*'But thou art too lovely and precious a gem 
To be bound to their burdens and sullied by 

them — 
For shame, Ellen, shame! — cast thy bondage 

aside, 
And away to the South, as my blessing and 

pride. 

*'0h, come where no winter thy footsteps can 

wrong. 
But where flowers are blossoming all the year 

long. 
Where the shade of the palm tree is over my 

home. 
And the lemon and orange are white in their 

bloom ! 

**Oh, come to my home, where my servants 

shall all 
Depart at thy bidding and come at thy call ; 



26 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

They shall heed thee as mistress with tremb- 
ling and awe, 

And each wish of thy heart shall be felt as a 
law." 

Oh, could ye have seen her — that pride of our 

girls- 
Arise and cast back the dark wealth of her curls. 
With a scorn in her eye which the gazer could 

feel. 
And a glance like the sunshine that flashes on 

steel ! 

*'Go back, haughty Southron! thy treasures 

of gold 
Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou hast 

sold; 
Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear 
The crack of the whip and the footsteps of fear! 

*'And the sky of thy South may be brighter 

than ours, 
And greener thy landscapes, and fairer thy 

flowers ; 
But, dearer the blast round our mountains 

which raves, 
Than the sweet summer zephyr which breathes 

over slaves! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 27 

* * Full low at thy bidding thy negroes may kneel. 
With the iron of bondage on spirit and heel, 
Yet know that the Yankee girl sooner would 

be 
In fetters with them, than in freedom with 

thee!" 



28 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 

Champion of those who groan beneath 

Oppression's iron hand: 
In view of penury, hate and death, 

I see thee fearless stand. 
Still bearing up thy lofty brow, 

In the steadfast strength of truth, 
In manhood sealing well the vow 

And promise of thy youth. 

Go on! — for thou hast chosen well; 

On, in the strength of God! 
Long as one human heart shall swell 

Beneath the tyrant's rod. 
Speak in the slumbering nation's ear. 

As thou hast ever spoken. 
Until the dead in sin shall hear — 

The fetter's link be broken! 

I love thee with a brother's love, 

I feel my pulses thrill, 
To mark thy spirit soar above 

The cloud of human ill. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 29 

My heart hath leap'd to answer thine, 

And echo back thy words, 
As leaps the warrior's at the shine 

And flash of kindred swords ! 

They tell me thou art rash and vain — 

A searcher after fame — 
That thou art striving but to gain 

A long enduring name — 
That thou hast nerved the Afric's hand. 

And steel' d the Afric's heart, 
To shake aloft his vengeful brand, 

And rend his chain apart. 

Have I not known thee well, and read 

Thy mighty purpose long ! 
And watch 'd the trials which have made 

Thy human spirit strong? 
And shall the slanderer's demon breath 

Avail with one like me, 
To dim the sunshine of my faith 

And earnest trust in thee? 

Go on — the dagger's point may glare 

Amid thy pathway's gloom — 
The fate which sternly threatens there 

Is glorious martyrdom ! 
Then onward with a martyr's zeal — 

Press on to thy reward — 
The hour when man shall only kneel 

Before his Father — God. 



30 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES B. 
STORRS. 

LATE PRESIDENT OF WESTERN RESERVE COLLEGE. 

"He fell a martyr to the interests of his colored 
brethren. For many months did that mighty man of 
God apply his discriminating and gigantic mind to the 
subject of slavery and its remedy ; and, when his soul 
could no longer contain his holy indignation against the 
upholders and apologists of this unrighteous system, he 
gave vent to his aching heart, and poured forth his clear 
thoughts and holy feelings in such deed and soul- 
entrancing eloquence, that other men, whom he would 
fain in his humble modesty acknowledge his superiors, 
sat at his feet and looked up as children to a parent." — 
Correspondent of the "Liberator," i6th of nth mo. 1833. 

Thou hast fallen in thine armor, 

Thou martyr of the Lord ! 
With thy last breath crying — "Onward! " 

And thy hand upon the sword. 
The haughty heart deride th, 

And the sinful lip reviles, 
But the blessing of the perishing 

Around thy pillow smiles ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 31 

When to our cup of trembling 

The added drop is given, 
And the long suspended thunder 

Falls terribly from Heaven, — 
When a new and fearful freedom 

Is proffer 'd of the Lord 
To the slow consuming Famine — 

The Pestilence and Sword! — 

When the refugees of Falsehood 

Shall be swept away in wrath, 
And the temple shall be shaken, 

With its idol, to the earth, — 
Shall not thy words of warning 

Be all remember'd then? 
And thy now unheeded message 

Burn in the hearts of men? 

Oppression's hand may scatter 

Its nettles on thy tomb. 
And even Christian bosoms 

Deny thy memory room ; 
For lying lips shall torture 

Thy mercy into crime, 
And the slanderer shall flourish 

As the bay- tree for a time. 

But, where the South-wind lingers 
On Carolina's pines, 



32 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Or, falls the careless sunbeam 
Down Georgia's golden mines, — 

Where now beneath his burthen 
The toiling slave is driven, — 

Where now a tyrant's mockery- 
Is offer'd unto Heaven, — 

Where Mammon hath its altars 

Wet o'er with human blood, 
And Pride and Lust debases 

The workmanship of God — 
There shall thy praise be spoken, 

Redeem'd from Falsehood's ban, 
When the fetters shall be broken. 

And the slave shall be a man ! 

Joy to thy spirit, brother! 

A thousand hearts are warm — 
A thousand kindred bosoms 

Are baring to the storm. 
What though red-handed Violence 

With secret Fraud combine, 
The wall of fire is round us — 

Our Present Help was thine! 

Lo — the waking up of nations, 
From Slavery's fatal sleep — 

The murmur of a Universe — 
Deep calling unto Deep ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 33 

Joy to thy spirit, brother ! 

On every wind of Heaven 
The onward cheer and summons 

Of Freedom's soul is given! 

Glory to God forever ! 

Beyond the despot's will 
The soul of Freedom liveth 

Imperishable still. 
The words which thou hast uttered 

Are of that soul a part, 
And the good seed thou hast scatter 'd 

Is springing from the heart. 

In the evil days before us, 

And the trials yet to come — 
In the shadow of the prison, 

Or the cruel martyrdom — 
We will think of thee, O brother! 

And thy sainted name shall be 
In the blessing of the captive 

And the anthem of the free. 



34 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



SONG OF THE FREE. 

"Living, I shall assert the right of Free Discussion: 
dying, I shall assert it; and, should I leave no other in- 
heritance to my children, by the blessing of God I will 
leave them the inheritance of free principles, and the 
example of a manly and independent defence of them." 
—Daniel Webster. 

Pride of New England! 

Soul of our fathers! 
Shrink we all craven-like, 

When the storm gathers? 
What though the tempest be 

Over us lowering, 
Where's the New Englander 

Shamefully cowering? 
Graves green and holy 

Around us are lying, — 
Free were the sleepers all, 

Living and dying! 
Back with the Southerner's 

Padlocks and scourges! 
Go — let him fetter down 

Ocean's free surges! 
Go — let him silence 

Winds, clouds, and waters — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. ^85 

Never New England's own 
Free sons and daughters! 

Free as our rivers are 
Ocean-ward going — 

Free as the breezes are 
Over us blowing. 

Up to our altars, then, 

Haste we, and summon 
Courage and loveliness, 

Manhood and woman ! 
Deep let our pledges be! 

Freedom forever! 
Truce with Oppression, 

Never, oh! never! 
By our own birthright-gift 

Granted of Heaven — 
Freedom for heart and lip, 

Be the pledge given ! 
If we have whispered truth, 

Whisper no longer ; 
Speak as the tempest does, 

Sterner and stronger ; 
Still be the tones of truth 

Louder and firmer, 
Startling the haughty South 

With the deep murmur ! 



36 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

God and our Charter's right 
Freedom forever! 

Truce with Oppression, 
Never, oh! never! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 37 



THE HUNTERS OF MEN.* 

Have ye heard of our hunting, o'er mountain 

and glen, 
Through canebrake and forest — the hunting of 

men? 
The lords of our land to this hunting have 

gone, 
As the fox-hunter follows the sound of the 

horn: 
Hark! — the cheer and the hallo! — the crack of 

the whip. 
And the yell of the hound as he fastens his 

grip! 
All blithe are our hunters, and noble their 

match — 
Though hundreds are caught, there are mil- 
lions to catch : 
So speed to their hunting, o'er mountain and 

glen, 
Through canebrake and forest — the hunting 

of men ! 

♦Written on reading the report of the proceedings of the 
American Colonization Society, at its annual meeting in 1834. 



38 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Gay luck to our hunters ! — how nobly they ride 
In the glow of their zeal and the strength of 

their pride ! 
The Priest with his cassock flung back on the 

wind, 
Just screening the politic Statesman behind — 
The saint and the sinner, with cursing and 

prayer — 
The drunk and the sober, ride merrily there. 
And woman — kind woman — wife, widow, and 

maid — 
For the good of the hunted, is lending her aid: 
Her foot's in the stirrup — her hand on the 

rein — 
How blithely she rides to the hunting of men ! 

Oh ! goodly and grand is our hunting to see, 
In this "land of the brave and this home of the 

free." 
Priest, warrior, and statesman, from Georgia 

to Maine, 
All mounting the saddle — all grasping the 

rein — 
Right merrily hunting the black man, whose sin 
Is the curl of his hair and the hue of his skin ! 
Woe, now, to the hunted who turns him at bay! 
Will our hunters be turn'd from their purpose 

and prey? 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 39 

Will their hearts fail within them? — their 

nerves tremble, when 
All roughly they ride to the hunting of men? 

Ho ! — alms for our hunters ! all weary and faint 
Wax the curse of the sinner and prayer of the 

saint. 
The horn is wound faintly — the echoes are still 
Over canebrake and river, and forest and hill. 
Haste — alms for our hunters! the hunted once 

more 
Have turn'd from their flight with their backs 

to the shore : 
What right have they here in the home of the 

white. 
Shadow 'd o'er by our banner of Freedom and 

Right? 
Ho? — alms for the hunters! or never again 
Will they ride in their pomp to the hunting of 

men! 

Alms — alms for our hunters ! why will ye de- 
lay. 

When their pride and their glory are melting 
away? 

The parson has turn'd; for, on charge of his 
own. 

Who goeth a warfare, or hunting, alone? 



40 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

The politic statesman looks back with a sigh, 
There is doubt in his heart — there is fear in his 

eye. 
Oh! haste, lest that doubting and fear shall 

prevail, 
And the head of his steed take the place of the 

tail. 
Oh ! haste, ere he leave us ! for who v/ill ride 

then. 
For pleasure or gain, to the hunting of men? 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 41 



TO GOV. M'DUFFIK 

"The patriarchal institution of slavery, " — ' 'the corner- 
stone of our republican edifice." — Gov. M'Duffie, 

King of Carolina — hail ! 

Last champion of Oppression's battle! 
Lord of rice-tierce and cotton-bale ! 

Of sugar-box and human cattle! 
Around thy temples, green and dark, 

Thy own tobacco- wreath reposes ; 
Thyself, a brother Patriarch 

Of Isaac, Abraham and Moses! 

Why not? — Their household rule is thine; 

Like theirs, thy bondmen feel its rigor; 
And thine, perchance, as concubine, 

Some swarthy counterpart of Hagar. 
Why not? — Like Patriarchs of old, 

The priesthood is thy chosen station ; 
Like them thou payest thy rites to gold — 

An Aaron's calf of Nullification. 

All fair and softly ! — Must we, then, 
From Ruin's open jaws to save us, 
Upon our own free working men 



42 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Confer a master's special favors? 
Whips for the back — chains for the heels — 

Hooks for the nostrils of Democracy, 
Before it spurns as well as feels 

The riding of the Aristocracy ! 

Ho ! — fishermen of Marblehead ! 

Ho ! — Lynn cordwainers, leave your leather, 
And wear the yoke in kindness made, 

And clank your needful chains together! 
Let Lowell mills their thousands yield, 

Down let the rough Vermonter hasten, 
Down from the workshop and the field, 

And thank us for each chain we fasten. 

Slaves in the rugged Yankee land! 

I tell thee, Carolinian, never! 
Our rocky hills and iron strand 

Art free, and shall be free forever. 
The surf shall wear that strand away. 

Our granite hills in dust shall moulder, 
Ere Slavery's hateful yoke shall lay. 

Unbroken, on a Yankee's shoulder! 

No, George M'Duffie! — keep thy words 
For the mail plunderers of thy city. 

Whose robber- right is in their swords; 

For recreant Priest and Lynch-Committee ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 43 

Go, point thee to thy cannon's mouth, 
And swear its brazen lips are better, 

To guard "the interests of the South," 

Than parchment scroll, or Charter's letter.* 

We fear not. Streams which brawl most loud 

Along- their course, are oftenest shallow ; 
And loudest to a doubting crowd 

The coward publishes his valor. 
Thy courage has at least been shown 

In many a bloodless Southern quarrel. 
Facing, with hartshorn and cologne. 

The Georgian's harmless pistol- barrel. f 

No, Southron, not in Yankee land 

Will threats, like thine, a fear awaken : 
The men, who on their charter stand 

For truth and right, may not be shaken. 
Still shall that truth assail thine ear; 

Each breeze, from Northern mountains 
blowing. 
The tones of Liberty shall bear — 

God's "free incendiaries" sfoinof! 



* See Speech of Gov. M'D. to an artillery company in Charles- 
ton, S. C. 

t Most of our readers will recollect the "chivalrous" affair be- 
tween M'Duffie and Col. Cummings, of Georgia, some years ago, 
in which the parties fortified themselves with spirits of harts- 
horn and eau de Cologne. 



44 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

We give thee joy! — thy name is heard 

With reverence on the Neva's borders; 
And "turban'd Turk," and Poland's load, 

And Metternich are thy applauders. 
Go — if thou lov'st such fame, and share 

The mad Ephesian's base example — 
The holy bonds of Union tear, 

And clap the torch to Freedom's temple! 

Do this — Heaven's frown thy country's curse. 

Guilt's fiery torture ever burning- — 
The quenchless thirst of Tantalus, 

And Ixion's wheel forever turning — 
A name, of which "the pain'dest fiend 

Below" his own would barter never, — 
These shall be thine unto the end — 

Thy damning heritage forever. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 4-5 



LINES, 

Written on reading *• Right and Wrong in Boston;" 
containing an account of the meeting of the Boston 
Female Anti-Slavery Society, and the mob which fol- 
lowed, on the 2ist of the loth month, 1835. 

Unshrinking from the storm, 

Well have ye borne yotir part, 
With woman's fragile form, 

But more than manhood's heart! 
Faithful to Freedom, when 

Its name was held accursed — 
Faithful, midst ruffian men. 

Unto your holy trust. 

Oh— steadfast in the Truth! 

Not for yourselves alone, 
Matron and gentle youth. 

Your lofty zeal was shown : 
For the bondman of all climes — 

For Freedom's last abode — 
For the hope of future times — 

For the birthright gift of God — 



46 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

For scorn 'd and broken laws — 

For honor and the right — 
For the staked and peril'd cause 

Of liberty and light — 
For the holy eyes above 

On a world of evil cast — 
For the children of your love — 

For the mothers of the past! 

Worthy of them are ye — 

The Pilgrim wives who dared 
The waste and unknown sea, 

And the hunter's perils shared. 
Worthy of her* whose mind, 

Triumphant over all, 
Ruler nor priest could bind, 

Nor banishment appal. 

Worthy of her f who died 

Martyr of Freedom, where 
Your *' Commons' " verdant pride. 

Opens to sun and air: 
Upheld at that dread hour 

By strength which could not fail ; 

* Mrs, Hutchinson, who was banished from the Massachusetts 
Colony, as the easiest method of confuting her doctrines. 

t Mary Dyer, the Quaker Martyr, who was hanged in Boston, 
in 1659, for worshipping God according to the dictates of her 
conscience. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 47 

Before whose holy power 
Bigot and priest turn'd pale. 

Ood give ye strength to run, 

Unawed by Earth or Hell, 
The race ye have begun 

So gloriously and well. 
Until the trumpet-call 

Of Freedom has gone forth, 
IVith joy and life to all 

The bondmen of the earth! 

TJntil immortal mind 

Unshackled walks abroad, 
And chains no longer bind 

The image of our God. 
Until no captive one 

Murmurs on land or wave ; 
And, in his course, the sun 

Looks down upon no slave ! 



48 WHITTIER'S FOEMS. 



TO G. B., Esq. 

VUTHOR OF THE WORCESTER DEMOCRATIC 
ADDRESS. 

Friend of the poor ! — go on — 

Speak for the Truth and Right! 
Onward — though hate and scorn 

Gloom round thee as the night. 
Speak — at each word of thine, 

Some ancient Fraud is riven, 
And through its rents of ruin shine 

The sunbeams and the heaven! 

Speak — for thy voice will be 

Welcome in each abode 
Where manhood's heart and knee 

Are bended but to God ; 
Where honest bosoms hold 

Their holy birthright well ; 
Where Freedom spurns at Mammon's gold; 

Where Man is not to sell ! 

Speak — for the poor man's cause — 
For Labor's just reward — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 49 

For violated law 

Of nature and of God ! 
Speak— let the Debtor hear 

Within his living grave ! 
Speak — thunder in Oppression's ear, 

Deliverance to the slave ! 

Ay, speak — while there is time, 

For all a freeman's claim, — 
Ere thought becomes a crime, 

And Freedom but a name ! 
While yet the Tongue and Pen 

And Press are unforbid, 
And we dare to feel and act as men — 

Speak — as our fathers did ! 

The land we love ere long 

Shall kindle at thy call ; 
Falsehood and charter'd Wrong, 

And legal Robbery, fall : 
The proud shall not combine — 

The secret council cease — 
And underneath his sheltering vine 

Shall Labor dwell in peace ! 

Old Massachusetts yet 

Retains her earliest fires, 
Still on her hills are set 

The altars of her sires : 



50 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Her "fierce Democracie" 

Has yet its strength unshorn, 

And pamper' d Power ere long shall see 
Its Gaza-gates uptorn. 

Perish shall all which takes 

From Labor's board and can! 
Perish shall all which makes 

A Spaniel of the Man ! 
With freshen 'd courage, then, 

On to the glorious end — 
Ever the same as thou hast been — 

The poor man's fastest friend! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 61 



TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS 
SHIPLEY, 

President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, who 
died on the 17th of the 9th month, 1836, a devoted 
Christian and Philanthropist. 

Gone to thy Heavenly Father's rest! 

The flowers of Eden round thee blowing! 
And on thine ear the murmurs blest 

Of Shiloah's waters softly flowing! 
Beneath that Tree of Life which gives 
To all the earth its healing leaves ! 
In the white robe of angels clad ! 

And wandering by that sacred river, 
Whose streams of holiness make glad 

The city of our God forever ! 

Gentlest of spirits ! — not for thee 

Our tears are shed — our sighs are given: 

Why mourn to know thou art a free 
Partaker of the joys of Heaven? 

Finish'd thy work, and kept thy faith 

In Christian firmness unto death : 

And beautiful as sky and earth, 



52 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

When Autnmn's is sun downward going, 
The blessed memory of thy worth 
Around thy place of slumber glowing ! 

But woe for us ! who lingers still 

With feebler strength and hearts less lowly ,^ 
And minds less steadfast to the will 

Of Him whose every work is holy. 
For not like thine, is crucified 
The spirit of our human pride : 
And at the bondman's tale of woe, 

And for the outcast and forsaken, 
Not warm like thine, but cold and slow. 

Our weaker sympathies awaken. 

Darkly upon our struggling way 

The storm of human hate is sweeping ; 
Hunted and branded, and a prey, 

Our watch amidst the darkness keeping! 
Oh ! for that hidden strength which can 
Nerve unto death the inner man ! 
Oh ! for thy spirit, tried and true, 

And constant in the hour of trial. 
Prepared to suffer, or to do. 

In meekness and in self-denial. 

Oh ! for that spirit, meek and mild, 

Derided, spurn'd, yet uncomplaining — 

By man deserted and reviled, 

Yet faithful to its trust remaining. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 53 

Still prompt and resolute to save 

From scourge and chain the hunted slave ! 

Unwavering in the Truth's defence, 

Even where the fires of Hate are burning, 
Th* unquailing eye of innocence 

Alone upon th' oppressor turning! 

O loved of thousands, to thy grave, 

Sorrowing of heart, thy brethren bore thee ! 
The poor man and the rescued slave 

Wept as the broken earth closed o'er thee — 
And grateful tears, like summer rain, 
Quicken'd its dying grass again! 
And there, as to some pilgrim-shrine, 

Shall come the outcast and the lowly, 
Of gentle deeds and words of thine 

Recalling memories sweet and holy! 

Oh ! for the death the righteous die ! 

An end, like Autumn's day declining. 
On human hearts, as on the sk}^ 

With holier, tenderer beauty shining ; 
As to the parting soul were given 
The radiance of an opening Heaven! 
As if that pure and blessed light, 

From off th' Eternal altar flowing, 
Were bathing, in its upward flight, 

The spirit to its worship going! 



54 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



THE SLAVE SHIPS. 

" That fatal, that perfidious bark, 

Buiit i* the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark." 

— Milton's Lycidas. 

The French ship Le Rodeur, with a crew of twenty- 
two men and with one hundred and sixty negro slaves 
sailed from Bonny in Africa, April, 1819. On approach- 
ing the line, a terrible malady broke out — an obstinate 
disease of the eyes — contagious, and altogether beyond 
the resources of medicine. It was aggravated by the 
scarcity of water among the slaves (only half a wine- 
glass per day being allowed to an individual), and by 
the extreme impurity of the air in which they breathed. 
By the advice of the physician, they were brought upon 
deck occasionally ; but some of the poor wretches, lock- 
ing themselves in each other's arms leaped overboard, 
in the hope, which so universally prevails among them, 
of being swiftly transported to their own homes in Africa. 
To check this, the captain ordered several, who were 
stopped in the attempt, to be shot, or hanged, before 
their companions. The disease extended to the crew; 
and one after another were smitten with it, until only 
one remained unaffected. Yet even this dreadful con- 
dition did not preclude calculation ; to save the expense 
of supporting slaves rendered unsalable, and to obtain 
grounds for a claim against the underwriters, thirty-six 
of the negroes, having become blind were thrown into 
the sea and drowned ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 55 

In the midst of their dreadful fears lest the solitary- 
individual, whose sight remained unaffected, should 
also be seized with the malady, a sail was discovered. 
It was the Spanish slaver Leon. The same disease had 
been there ; and horrible to tell, all the crew had become 
blind. Unable to assist each other, the vessels parted. 
The Spanish ship has never since been heard of. The 
Rodeur reached Guadaloupe on the 21st of June; the 
only man who had escaped the disease, and had thus 
been enabled to steer the slaver into port, caught it m 
three days after its arrival.— Speech of M. Benjamin 
Constant, in the French Chamber of Deputies, June 17, 
1820. 

"All ready?" cried the captain; 

"Ay, ay!" the seamen said; 
"Heave up the worthless lubbers — 

The dying and the dead." 
Up from the slave-ship's prison 

Fierce, bearded heads were thrust — 
"Now let the sharks look to it — 

Toss up the dead ones first!" 

Corpse after corpse came up, — 

Death had been busy there ; 
Where every blow is mercy. 

Why should the Spoiler spare? 
Corpse after corpse they cast 

Sullenly from the ship, 
Yet bloody with the traces 

Of fetter-link and whip. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Gloomily stood the captain, 

With his arms -Qpon his breast, 
With his cold brow sternly knotted, 

And his iron lip compress 'd. 
"Are all the dead dog-s over?" 

Growl 'd through that matted lip — 
"The blind ones are no better, 

Let's lighten the good ship." 

Hark! from the ship's dark bosom, 

The very sounds of Hell ! 
The ringing clank of iron — 

The maniac's short, sharp yell! — 
The hoarse, low curse, throat-stifled— 

The starving infant's moan — 
The horror of a breaking heart 

Pour'd through a mother's groan! 

Up from that loathsome prison 

The stricken blind ones came: 
Below, had all been darkness — 

Above, was still the same. 
Yet the holy breath of Heaven 

Was sweetly breathing there, 
And the heated brow of fever 

Cool'd in the soft sea air. 

"Overboard with them, shipmates!" 
Cutlass and dirk were plied; 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 57 

Fetter'd and blind, one after one, 
Plunged down the vessel's side. 

The sabre smote above — 
Beneath, the lean shark lay, 

Waiting with'wide and bloody jaw 
His quick and human prey. 

God of the Earth! what cries 

Rang upward unto Thee? 
Voices of agony and blood, 

From ship-deck and from sea. 
The last dull plung was heard — 

The last wave caught its stain — 
And the unsated shark look'd up 

For human hearts in vain. 
***** 
Red glow'd the Western waters — 

The setting sun was there, 
Scattering alike on wave and cloud 

His fiery mesh of hair. 
Amidst a group in blindness, 

A solitary eye 
Gazed, from the burden 'd slaver's deck, 

Into that burning sky. 

*'A storm," spoke out the gazer, 

"Is gathering and at hand — 
Curse on't — I'd give my other eye 

For one firm rood of land." 



58 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

And then he laugh 'd — but only 
His echo'd laugh replied — 

For the blinded and the suffering 
Alone were at his side. 

Night settled on the water", 

And on a stormy heaven, 
While fiercely on that lone ship's track 

The thunder-gust was driven. 
"A sail! — thank God, a sail!" 

And, as the helmsman spoke, 
Up through the stormy murmur, 

A shout of gladness broke. 

Down came the stranger vessci 

Unheeding on her way, 
So near, that on the slaver's deck ^ 

Fell off her driven spray. 
*'Ho! for the love of mercy — 

We're perishing and blind!" 
A wail of utter agony 

Came back upon the wind: 

*'Help us! for we are stricken 
With blindness every one; 

Ten days we've floated fearfully, 
Unnoting star or sun. 

Our ship's the slaver Leon — 
We've but a score on board — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 69 

Our slaves are all gone over — 
Help— for the love of God!" 

On livid brows of agony 

The broad red lightning shone — 
But the roar of wind and thunder 

Stifled the answering groan. 
Wail'd from the broken waters 

A last despairing cry, 
As, kindling in the stormy light, 

The stranger ship went by. 
***** 

In the sunny Guadaloupe 

A dark hull'd vessel lay — 
With a crew who noted never 

The night-fall or the day. 
The blossom of the orange 

Was white by every stream, 
And tropic leaf, and flower, and bird 

Were in the warm sunbeam. 

And the sky was bright as ever, 

And the moonlight slept as well, 
On the palm-trees by the hillside, 

And the streamlet of the dell ; 
And the glances of the Creole 

Were still as archly deep. 
And her smiles as full as ever 

Of passion and of sleep. 



60 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

But vain were bird and blossom, 

The green earth and the sky, 
And the smile of human faces, 

To the ever darken'd eye; 
For, amidst a vv^orld of beauty, 

The slaver went abroad, 
With his ghastly visage written 

By the awful curse of God! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 61 



STANZAS FOR THE TIMES.* 

Is this the land our fathers loved, 

The freedom which they toil'd to win? 

Is this the soil whereon they moved? 
Are these the graves they slumber in? 

Are we the sons by whom are borne 

The mantles which the dead have worn? 

And shall we crouch above these graves. 
With craven soul and fetter 'd lip? 

Yoke in with mark'd and branded slaves, 
And tremble at the driver's whip? 

Bend to the earth our pliant knees, 

And speak — but as our masters please? 



*The "Times" alluded to, were those evil times of the pro-slav- 
ery meeting in Faneuil Hall for the suppression of Freedom of 
Speech, lest it should endanger the foundations of commercial 
society. In view of the outrages which a careful observation of 
the times had enabled him to foresee must spring from the false 
witness borne against the abolitionists by the speakers at that 
meeting, well might Garrison say of them, "Sir, I consider the 
man who fires a city, guiltless in comparison." 



62 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Shall outraged Nature cease to feel? 

Shall Mercy's tears no longer flow? 
Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel — 

The dungeon's gloom — th' assassin's blow, 
Turn back the spirit roused to save 
The Truth — our Country — and the Slave? 

Of human skulls that shrine was made, 
Round which the priests of Mexico 

Before their loathsome idol pray'd — 
Is Freedom's altar fashion'd so? 

And must we yield to Freedom's God, 

As offering meet, the negro's blood? 

Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought 
Which well might shame extremest Hell? 

Shall freemen lock th' indignant thought? 
Shall Mercy's bosom cease to swell? 

Shall Honor bleed?— Shall Truth succumb? 

Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb? 

No — by each spot of haunted ground. 

Where Freedom weeps her children's fall — 

By Plymouth's rock — and Bunker's mound — 
By Griswold's stain 'd and shatter 'd wall — • 

By Warren's ghost — ^by Langdon's shade — 

By all the memories of our dead! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 63 

By their enlarging souls, which burst 
The bands and fetters round them set — 

By the free Pilgrim spirit nursed 
Within our inmost bosoms, yet, — 

By all above — around — below — 

Be ours th' indignant answer — NO! 

No^guided by our country's laws, 

For truth, and right, and suffering man, 

Be ours to strive in Freedom's cause, 
As Christians may — as freemen can ! 

Still pouring on unwilling ears 

That truth oppression only fears. 

What ! shall we guard our neighbor still, 
While woman shrieks beneath his rod, 

And while he tramples down at will 
The image of a common God? 

Shall watch and ward be round him set. 

Of Northern nerve and bayonet? 

And shall we know and share with him 

The danger and the open shame? 
And see our Freedom's light grow dim. 

Which should have fill'd the world with 
flame? 
And, writhing, feel where'er we turn, 
A world's reproach around us burn? 



64 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Is't not enough that this is borne? 

And asks our haughty neighbor more? 
Must fetters which his slaves have worn 

Clank round the Yankee farmer's door? 
Must he be told, beside his plough, 
What he must speak, and when, and how? 

Must he be told his freedom stands 

On Slavery's dark foundations strong, — 

On breaking hearts and fettered hands, 
On robbery, and crime, and wrong? 

That all his fathers taught is vain, — 

That Freedom's emblem is the chain? 

Its life, its soul, from slavery drawn? 

False, foul, profane! Go, — teach a well 
Of holy Truth from Falsehood born! 

Of Heaven refreshed by airs from Hell! 
Of Virtue in the arms of Vice ! 
Of Demons planting Paradise ! 

Rail on, then, * 'brethren of the South,"— 
Ye shall not hear the truth the less; — 

No seal is on the Yankee's mouth, 
No fetter on the Yankee's press! 

From our Green Mountains to the sea, 

One voice shall thunder, — We are free! 




Forgers of fetters and wielders of whips. " — Page 66. 

Whittier's Poems. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. G5 



LINES 

Written on reading the message of Governor Ritner, of 
Pennsylvania, 1836. 

Thank God for the token! — one lip is still 

free, — 
One spirit untrammeled, — unbending one 

kneel 
Like the oak of the mountain, deep rooted and 

firm, 
Erect, when the multitude bends to the storm ; 
When traitors to Freedom, and Honor, and 

God, 
Are bowed at an idol polluted with blood ; 
When the recreant North has forgotten her 

trust. 
And the lips of her honor is low in the dust, — 



66 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Thank God, that one arm from the shackle has 

broken ! 
Thank God, that one man, as a freeman, has 

spoken ! 

O'er thy crags, Alleghany, a blast has been 

blown ! 
Down thy tide, Susquehanna, the murmur has 

gone! 
To the land of the South — of the Charter and 

Chain — 
Of Liberty sweeten'd with Slavery's pain; 
Where the cant of Democracy dwells on the 

lips 
Of the forgers of fetters, and wielders of whips ! 
Where "chivalric" honor means really no more 
Than scourging of women, and robbing the 

poor! 
Where the Moloch of Slavery sitteth on high. 
And the words which he utters are — Worship, 
or die! 

Right onward, oh, speed it! Wherever the 

blood 
Of the wrong'd and the guiltless is crying to 

God; 
Wherever a slave in his fetters is pining; 
Wherever the lash of the driver is twining ; 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 67 

Wherever from kindred, torn rudely apart, 
Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken of 

heart ; 
Wherever the shackles of tyranny bind, 
In silence and darkness, the God-given mind ; 
There, God speed it onward ! — its truth will be 

felt— 
The bonds shall be loosen'd — the iron shall 

melt! 

And oh, will the land where the free soul of 

Penn 
Still lingers and breathes over mountain and 

glen- 
Will the land where a Benezet's spirit went 

forth 
To the peel'd, and the meted, and outcast of 

earth — 
Where the words of the Charter of Liberty first 
From the soul of the sage and the patriot 

burst — 
Where first, for the wrong 'd and the weak of 

their kind, 
The Christian and Statesman their efforts com- 

bin'd— . 
Will that land of the free and the good wear a 

chain? 
Will the call to the rescue of Freedom be vain? 



68 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

No, Ritner! — her "Friends" at thy warning 

shall stand 
Erect for the truth, like their ancestral band ; 
Forgetting the fends and the strife of past time. 
Counting coldness injustice, and silence a 

crime ; 
Turning back from the cavil of creeds, to unite 
Once again for the poor in defence of the 

Right; 
Breasting calmly, but firmly, the full tide of 

Wrong, 
Overwhelm 'd, but not borne on its surges 

along; 
Unappal'd by the danger, the shame, and the 

pain, 
And counting each trial for Truth as their 

gain! 

And that bold-hearted yeomanry, honest and 

true, 
Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its due ; 
Whose fathers, of old, sang in concert with 

thine. 
On the banks of Swetara, the songs of the 

Rhine — ■ 
The pure German pilgrims, who first dared to 

brave 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 69 

The scorn of the proud in the cause of the 

slave :* — 
Will the sons of such men yield the lords of 

the South 
One brow for the brand — for the padlock one 

mouth? 
They cater to tyrants? — They rivet the chain, 
Which their fathers smote off, on the negro 

again? 
No, NEVER! — one voice, like the sound in the 

cloud, 
When the roar of the storm waxes loud and 

more loud. 
Wherever the foot of the freeman hath press'd 
From the Delaware's marge to the Lake of the 

West, 
On the South-going breezes shall deepen and 

grow, 
Till the land it sweeps over shall tremble be- 
low! 
The voice of a people— uprisen — awake — 
Pennsylvania's watchword, with Freedom at 

stake, 
Thrilling up from each valley, flung down from 

each height, 
"Our Country and Liberty! — God for the 

Right!" 

*It is a remarkable fact, that the first testimony of a religious 
body against negro slavery was that of a Society of German 
"Friends" in Pennsylvania. 



70 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



HYMN, 

Written for the meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society, at 
Chatham Street Chapel, N. Y., held on the 4th of the 
7th month, 1834. 

O Thou, whose presence went before 
Our fathers in their weary way, 

As with Thy chosen moved of yore 
The fire by night — the cloud by day; 

When from each temple of the free 
A nation's song ascends to Heaven, 

Most Holy Father ! unto Thee 

May not our humble prayer be given? 

Thy children all — though hue and form 
Are varied in Thine own good will — 

With Thy own holy breathings warm. 
And fashion 'd in Thine image still. 

We thank Thee, Father! — hill and plain 
Around us wave their fruits once more ; 

And cluster'd vine, and blossom'd grain. 
Are bending round each cottage door. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 71 

And peace is here ; and hope and love 
Are round us as a mantle thrown, 

And unto Thee, supreme above, 
The knee of prayer is bow'd alone. 

But oh, for those this day can bring, 

As unto us, no joyful thrill — 
For those who, under freedom's wing. 

Are bound in slavery's fetters still: 

For those to whom Thy living word 
Of light and love is never given — 

For those whose ears have never heard 
The promise and the hope of Heaven! 

For broken heart, and clouded mind, 
Whereon no human mercies fall — 

Oh, be Thy gracious love inclined, 
Who, as a father, pitiest all ! 

And grant, O Father ! that the time 
Of Earth's deliverance may be near, 

When every land, and tongue, and clime. 
The message of Thy love shall hear — 

When, smitten as with fire from Heaven, 
The captive's chain shall sink in dust, 

And to his fetter 'd soul be given 
The glorious freedom of the just! 



72 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



HYMN 



Written for the celebration of the Third Anniversary of 
British Emancipation, at the Broadway Tabernacle, 
N. Y., "First of August," 1837. 

O holy Father! — just and true 

Are all Thy works and words and ways, 
And unto Thee alone are due 

Thanksgiving and eternal praise ! 
As children of Thy gracious care, 

We veil the eye — we bend the knee, 
With broken words of praise and prayer, 

Father and God, we come to Thee. 

For Thou has heard, O God of right, 

The sighing of the Island slave ; 
And stretched for him the arm of might, 

Not shortened that it could not save. 
The laborer sits beneath his vine. 

The shackled soul and hand are free — 
Thanksgiving! — for the work is Thine! 

Praise! — for the blessing is of Thee! 

And oh, we feel Thy presence here — 
Thy awful arm in judgment bare! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 73 

Thine eye hath seen the bondman's tear — 
Thine ear hath heard the bondman's 
prayer ! 

Praise ! — for the pride of man is low, 
The counsels of the wise are nought, 

The fountains of repentance flow ; 

What hath our God in mercy wrought? 

Speed on Thy work. Lord God of Hosts, 

And when the bondman's chain is riven, 
And swells from all our guilty coasts 

The anthem of the free to Heaven, 
Oh, not to those whom Thou hast led. 

As with Thy cloud and fire before, 
But unto Thee, in fear and dread. 

Be praise and glory evermore ! 



74 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



CLERICAL OPPRESSORS. 

In the Report of the celebrated pro-slavery meeting 
in Charleston, S. C, on the 4th of the 9th month, 1835, 
published in the "Courier" of that city, it is stated: 
"The clergy of all denominations attended in a body, 
lending their sanction to the proceedings, and adding 
by their presence to the impressive character of the 
scene!" 

Just God ! — and these are they 
Who minister at Thine altar, God of Right ! 
Men who their hands with prayer and blessing 
lay 

On Israel's Ark of light! 

What! preach and kidnap men? 
Give thanks — and rob Thy own afflicted poor? 
Talk of Thy glorious liberty, and then 

Bolt hard the captive's door? 

What ! servants of Thy own 
Merciful Son, who came to seek and save 
The homeless and the outcast, — fettering down 

The task'd and plunder'd slave! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 75 

Pilate and Herod, friends! 
Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine ! 
Just God and holy! is that church which lends 

Strength to the spoiler Thine? 

Paid hypocrites, who turn 
Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book 
Of those high words of truth which search and 
burn . 

In warning and rebuke. 

Feed fat, ye locusts, feed ! 
And, in your tassel 'd pulpits, thank the Lord 
That, from the toiling bondman's utter need. 

Ye pile your own full board. 

How long, O Lord ! how long 
Shall such a Priesthood barter truth away, 
And, in Thy name, for robbery and wrong 

At Thy own altars pray? 

Is not Thy hand stretch 'd forth 
Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite? 
Shall not the living God of all the earth, 

And Heaven above, do right? 

Woe, then, to all who grind 
Their brethren of a Common Father down ! 
To all who plunder from th' immortal mind 

Its bright and glorious crown ! 



76 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Woe to the Priesthood! woe 
To those whose hire is with the price of blood — 
Perverting, darkening", changing as they go, 

The searching truths of God! 

Their glory and their might 
Shall perish ; and their very names shall be 
Vile before all the people, in the light 

Of a world's liberty. 

Oh ! speed the moment on 
When Wrong shall cease — and Liberty, and 

Love, 
And Truth, and Right, throughout the earth 
be known 
As in their home above. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



LINES, 

Written on the adoption of Pickney's Resolutions, in 
the House of Representatives, and the passage of Cal- 
houn's "Bill of Abominations" to a second reading, 
in the Senate of the United States. 

Now, by our father's ashes! where 's the spirit 
Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone? 
Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit 

Their names alone? 

Is the old Pilgrim spirit quench'd within us? 
Stoops the proud manhood of our souls so 
low, 
That Mammon's lure or Party's wile c^n win 
us 

To silence now? 

No. When our land to ruin's brink is verging. 
In God's name, let us speak while there is 
time ! 
Now, when the padlocks for our lips are forg- 
ing. 

Silence is crime ! 



78 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

What! shall we henceforth humbly ask as 
favors 
Rights all our own? In madness shall we 
barter, 
For treacherous peace, the freedom Nature 
gave us, 

God and our charter? 

Here shall the statesman seek the free to fet- 
ter? 
Here Lynch law light its horrid fires on high? 
And, in the church, their proud and skill'd abet- 
tor, 

Make truth a lie? 

Torture the pages of the hallow 'd Bible, 

To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood? 
And, in Oppression's hateful service, libel 
Both man and God? 

Shall our New England stand erect no longer, 
But stoop in chains upon her downward way, 
Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger 
Da}'- after day? 

Oh, no; methinks from all her wild, green 
mountains — 
From valleys where her slumbering fathers 

lie— 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 79 

From her blue rivers and her welling- fountains, 
And clear, cold sky — 

From her rough coast, and isles, which hungry 
Ocean 
Gnaws with his surges — from the fisher's 
skiff, 
With white sail swaying to the billows' motion 
Round rock and cliff — 

From the free fireside of her unbought far- 
mer — 
From her free laborer at his loom and wheel — 
From the brown smith-shop, where, beneath 
the hammer, 

Rings the red steel — 

From each and all, if God hath not forsaken 

Our land, and left us to an evil choice, 
Loud as the summer thunderbolt shall waken 
A people's voice! 

Startling and stern! the Northern winds shall 
bear it 
Over Potomac's to St. Mary's wave; 
And buried Freedom shall awake to hear it 
Within her grave. 



80 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Oh, let that voice go forth ! The bondman sigh- 
ing 
By Santee's wave, in Mississippi's cane, 
Shall feel the hope, within his bosom dying, 
Revive again. 

Let it go forth! The millions who are gazing 

Sadly upon ns from afar, shall smile, 
And unto God devout thanksgiving raising, 
Bless us the while. 

Oh, for your ancient freedom, pure and hoi)'', 

For the deliverance of a groaning earth. 
For the wrong' d captive, bleeding, crush 'd and 
lowly. 

Let it go forth ! 

Sons of the best of fathers! will ye falter 

With all they left ye peril' d and at stake 
Ho! once again on freedom's holy altar 
The fire awake ! 

Prayer-strengthen'd for the trial, come to- 
gether, 
Put on the harness for the moral fight. 
And, with the blessing of your heavenly Fa- 
ther, 

Maintain the risfht! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 81 



LINES, 

On the death of S. Oliver Torrey, Secretary of the Bos- 
ton Young Men's Anti-Slavery Society. 

Gone before us, O our brother, 

To the spirit-land ! 
Vainly look we for another 

In thy place to stand. 
Who shall offer youth and beauty 

On the wasting shrine 
Of a stern and lofty duty, 

With a faith like thine? 

Oh ! thy gentle smile of greeting 

Who again shall see? 
Who, amidst the solemn meeting. 

Gaze again on thee? — 
Who, when peril gathers o'er us, 

Wear so calm a brow? 
Who, with evil men before us, 

So serene as thou? 

Early hath the spoiler found thee. 

Brother of our love ! 
Autumn's faded earth around thee> 

And its storms above ! 

6 



82 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Evermore that turf lie lightly, 

And, with future showers, 
O'er thy slumbers fresh and brightly 

Blow the summer flowers ! 

In the locks thy forehead gracing, 

Not a silvery streak ; 
Nor a line of sorrow's tracing 

On thy fair young cheek ; 
Eyes of light and lips of roses, 

Such as Hylas wore — 
Over all that curtain closes. 

Which shall rise no more ! 

Will the vigil Love is keeping 

Round that grave of thine. 
Mournfully, like Jazer weeping 

Over Sibmah's vine* — 
Will the pleasant memories, swelling 

Gentle hearts, of thee. 
In the spirit's distant dwelling 

All unheeded be? 

If the spirit ever gazes. 

From its journeyings, back; 
If the immortal ever traces 

O'er its mortal track; 

* " O vine of Sibmah! I will weep for thee with the weeping of 
Jazer!"— Jeremiah xlviii, 32. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 83 

Wilt thou not, O brother, meet us 

Sometimes on our way, 
And, in hours of sadness, greet us 

As a spirit may? 

Peace be with thee, O our brother^ 

In the spirit-land ! 
Vainly look we for another 

In thy place to stand. 
Unto Truth and Freedom giving 

All thy earthly powers, 
Be thy virtues with the living. 

And thy spirit ours ! 



84 WHITTIER'S POEM^ 



LINES, 

Written on reading the famous "Pastoral Letter" of the 
Massachusetts General Association, 1837. 

So this is all — the utmost reach 

Of priestly power the mind to fetter ! 
When laymen think — when women preach — 

A war of words — a "Pastoral Letter!" 
Now, shame upon ye, parish Popes! 

Was 't thus with those, your predecessors, 
Who seal'd with racks and fire and ropes 

Their loving-kindness to transgressors? 

A "Pastoral Letter," grave and dull — 

Alas, in hoofs and horns and features, 
How different is your Brookfield bull. 

From him who thunders from St. Peter's! 
Your pastoral rights and powers from harm, 

Think ye, can words alone preserve them? 
Your wiser father taught the arm 

And sword of temporal power to serve them. 

Oh, glorious days — when Church and State 
Were wedded by your spiritual fathers ! 

And on submissive shoulders sat 

Your Wilsons and your Cotton Mathers. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 85 

No vile "itinerant" then could mar 
The beauty of your tranquil Zion, 

But at his peril of the scar 

Of hangman's whip and branching-iron. 

Then, wholesome laws relieved the Church 

Of heretic and mischief-maker, 
And priest and bailiff joined in search. 

By turns, of Papist, Witch, and Quaker! 
The stocks were at each church's door. 

The gallows stood on Boston Common, 
A Papist's ears the pillory bore, — 

The gallows- rope, a Quaker woman ! 

Your fathers dealt not as ye deal 

With "non-professing" frantic teachers; 
They bored the tongue with red-hot steel 

And flayed the backs of "female preachers. '* 
"Old Newbury, had her fields a tongue. 

And Salem's streets could tell their story, 
Of fainting woman dragged along. 

Gashed by the whip, accursed and gory ! 

And will ye ask me, why this taunt 
Of memories sacred from the scorner? 

And why with reckless hand I plant 
A nettle on the graves ye honor? 

Not to reproach New England's dead 
This record from the past I summon. 



86 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Of manhood to the scaffold led, 
And suffering and heroic woman. 

No — for yourselves alone, I turn 

The pages of intolerance over. 
That, in their spirit, dark and stem. 

Ye haply may your own discover ! 
For, if ye claim the "pastoral right" 

To silence Freedom's voice of warning, 
And from your precincts shut the light 

Of Freedom's day around ye dawning; 

If when an earthquake voice of power, 

And signs in earth and heaven are showing 
That forth, in its appointed hour. 

The Spirit of the Lord is going ! 
And with that Spirit, Freedom's light 

On kindred, tongue, and people breaking, 
Whose slumbering millions, at the sight. 

In glory and in strength are waking ! 

When, for the sighing of the poor. 

And for the needy, God hath risen. 
And chains are breaking, and a door 

Is opening for the souls in prison ! 
If then ye would, with puny hands, 

Arrest the very work of Heaven, 
And bind anew the evil bands 

Which God's right arm of power hath riven, 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 87 

What marvel that, in many a mind, 

Those darker deeds of bigot madness 
Are closely with your own combined, 

Yet *'less in anger than in sadness?" 
What marvel, if the people learn 

To claim the right of free opinion? 
What marvel, if at times they spurn 

The ancient yoke of your dominion? 

Oh, how contrast with such as they 

A Leavitt's free and generous bearing, 
A Perry's calm integrity, 

A Phelp's zeal and Christian daring! 
A Pollen's soul of sacrifice, 

And May's with kindness overflowing! 
How green and lovely in the eyes 

Of freemen are their graces growing! 

Ay, there's a glorious remnant yet. 

Whose lips are wet at Freedom's fountains, 
The coming of whose welcome feet 

Is beautiful upon our mountains! 
Men, who the gospel tidings bring 

Of Liberty and Love forever. 
Whose joy is one abiding spring, 

Whose peace is as a gentle river. 

But ye, who scorn the thrilling tale 
Of Carolina's high-soul'd daughters, 



88 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Which echoes here the motimf-iil wail 

Of sorrow from Edisto's waters, 
Close while ye may the public ear — 

With malice vex, with slander wound them — ■ 
The pure and good shall throng to hear, 

And tried and manly hearts surround them. 

Oh, ever may the Power which led 

Their way to such a fiery trial. 
And strengthen'd womanhood to tread 

The wine-press of such self-denial, 
Be round them in an evil land, 

With wisdom and with strength from Heaven, 
With Miriam's voice, and Judith's hand. 

And Deborah's song for triumph given! 

And what are ye who strive with God, 

Against the ark of His salvation. 
Moved by the breath of prayer abroad, 

With blessings for a dying nation? 
What, but the stubble and the hay 

To perish, even as flax consuming, 
With all that bars His glorious way. 

Before the brightness of His coming? 

And thou, sad Angel, who so long 
Hast waited for the glorious token. 

That Earth from all her bonds of wrong 
To liberty and light has broken — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 89 

Angel of Freedom ! soon to thee 

The sounding trumpet shall be given, 

And over Earth's full Jubilee 

Shall deeper joy be felt in Heaven! 



90 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



THE MORAL WARFARE. 

When Freedom, on her natal day, 

Within her war- rock 'd cradle lay, 

An iron race around her stood, 

Baptized her infant brow in blood. 

And, through the storm which round her swept, 

Their constant ward and watching kept. 

Then, where quiet herds repose. 
The roar of baleful battle rose. 
And brethren of a common tongue 
To mortal strife as tigers sprung, 
And every gift on Freedom's shrine 
Was man for beast, and blood for wine \ 

Our fathers to their graves have gone; 
Their strife is past — their triumph won ; 
But sterner trials wait the race 
Which rises in their honor'd place — 
A moral warfare with the crime 
And folly of an evil time. 

So let it be. In God's own might 
We gird us for the coming fight, 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 91' 

And, strong in Him whose cause is ours 
In conflict with unholy powers, 
We grasp the weapons He has given, — 
The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



MASSACHUSETTS. 

Written on hearing that the Resolutions of the Legis- 
lature of Massachusetts on the subject of Slavery, pre- 
sented by Hon. C. Gushing to the House of Representa- 
tives of the United States, have been laid on the table 
unread and unreferred, under the infamous rule of 
*'Patton's Resolution." 

And have they spurned thy word, 

Thou of the old Thirteen! 
Whose soil, where Freedom's blood first pour'd, 

Hath yet a darker green? 
Tread the weak Southron's pride and lust 
Thy name and councils in the dust? 

And have they closed thy mouth, 

And fix'd the padlock fast? 
Slave of the mean and tyrant South ! 

Is this thy fate at last? 
Old Massachusetts! can it be 
That thus thy sons m.ust speak of thee? 

Call from the Capitol 

Thy chosen ones again — 
Unmeet for them the base control 

Of Slavery's curbing reign! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. -93 

Unmeet for necks like theirs to feel 
The chafing of the despot's heel ! 

Call back to Qnincy's shade 

That steadfast son of thine ; 
Go — if thy homage must be paid 

To Slavery's pagod- shrine, 
Seek out some meaner offering than 
The free-born soul of that old man. 

Call that true spirit back, 

So eloquent and young; 
In his own vale of Merrimack 

No chains are on his tongue ! 
Better to breathe its cold, keen air. 
Than wear the Southron's shackle there. 

Ay, let them hasten home. 

And render up their trust ; 
Through them the Pilgrim state is dumb. 

Her proud lip in the dust t 
Her counsels and her gentlest word 
Of warning spurn 'd aside, unheard! 

Let them come back, and shake 

The base dust from their feet ; 
And with their tale of outrage wake 

The free hearts whom they meet ; 
And show before indignant men 
The scars where Slavery's chain has been. 



94 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Back from the Capitol — 

It is no place for thee ! 
Beneath the arch of Heaven's blue wall 

Thy voice may still be free ! 
What power shall chain thy spirit there, 
In God's free sun and freer air? 

A voice is calling thee, 

From all the martyr-graves 
Of those stern men, in death made free, 

Who could not live as slaves. 
The slumberings of thy honor 'd dead 
Are for thy sake disquieted! 

The curse of Slavery comes 

Still nearer, day by day ; 
Shall thy pure altars and thy homes 

Become the Spoiler's prey. 
Shall the dull tread of fetter' d slaves 
Sound o'er thy old and holy graves? 

Pride of the old Thirteen ! 

That curse may yet be stay'd — 
Stand thou, in Freedom's strength, between 

The living and the dead; 
Stand forth, for God and Liberty 
In one strong effort worthy thee ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 95 

Once more let Faneuil Hall 

By freemen's feet be trod, 
And give the echoes of its wall 

Once more to Freedom's God! 
And in the midst, unseen, shall stand 
The mighty fathers of thy land. 

Thy gather'd sons shall feel 

The soul of Adams near, 
And Otis with his fiery zeal. 

And Warren's onward cheer; 
And heart to heart shall thrill as when 
They moved and spake as living men. 

Fling, from thy Capitol, 

Thy banner to the light. 
And o'er thy Charter's sacred scroll, 

For Freedom and the Right, 
Breathe once again thy vows, unbroken — 
Speak once again as thou hast spoken. 

On thy bleak hills, speaks out ! 

A world thy words shall hear; 
And they who listen round about 

In friendship, or in fear, 
Shall know thee still, when sorest tried, 
*' Unshaken and unterrified?" * 



* "Massachusetts has held her way right onward, unshaken, 
tinseduced, unterrified."— Speech of C. Gushing, in the House of 
Representatives of the U. S., 1836. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



THE FAREWELL 

OF A VIRGINIAN SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGH- 
TERS SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE. 

Gone, gone — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, 
Where the noisome insect stings. 
Where the Fever Demon strews 
Poison with the falling dews, 
Where the sickly sunbeams glare 
Through the hot and misty air, — 
Gone, gone — sold and gone. 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 
From Virginia's hills and waters, — 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 

Gone, gone — sold and gone. 
To the rice-swamp dark and lone, 
There no mother's eye is near them, 
There no mother's ear can hear them, 
Never, when the torturing lash 
Seams their back with many a gash. 
Shall a mother's kindness bless them> 
Or a mother's arms caress them. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 97 

Gone, gone — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters, — 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 

Gone, gone — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 
Oh, when wear}^, sad, and slow, 
From the field > at night they go, 
Faint with toil, and rack'd with pain, 
To their cheerless homes again — 
There no brother's voice shall greet them 
There no father's welcome meet them. 
Gone, gone — sold and gone. 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 
From Virginia's hills and waters, — 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 

Gone, gone — sold and gone. 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
From the tree whose shadow lay 
On their childhood's place of play 
From the cool spring where they drank — 
Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank — 
From the solemn house of prayer, 
And the holy counsels there — 
Gone, gone — sold and gone. 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 

3 



; WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

From Virginia's hills and waters,— 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 

Gone, gone — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone- 
Toiling through the weary day. 
And at night the Spoiler's prey. 
Oh, that they had earlier died. 
Sleeping calmly, side by side. 
Where the tyrant's power is o'er 
And the fetter galls no more ! 
Gone, gone — sold and gone. 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters,— 
Woe is me, my stolen datighters ! 

Gone, gone — sold and gone. 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone. 
By the holy love He beareth — 
By the bruised reed He spareth — 
Oh, may He, to whom alone 
All their cruel wrongs are known, 
Still their hope and refuge prove, 
With a more than mother's love. 
Gone, gone — sold and gone, 
To the rice-swamp dank and lone, 
From Virginia's hills and waters,- 
Woe is me, my stolen daughters ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 99 



ADDRESS, 

Written for the opening of "Pennsylvania Hall" dedi- 
cated to Free Discussion, Virtue, Liberty, and Inde- 
pendence, on the 15th of the 5th month, 1838. 

Not with the splendors of the days of old, 
The spoil of nations, and "barbaric gold" — 
No weapons wrested from the fields of blood, 
Where dark and stern th' unyielding Roman 

stood, 
And the proud Eagles of his cohorts saw 
A world, war- wasted, crouching to his law — 
Nor blazon 'd car — nor banners floating gay, 
Like those which swept along the Appian way, 
When, to the welcome of imperial Rome, 
The victor warrior came in triumph home, 
And trumpet-peal, and shoutings wild and high 
Stirr'd the blue quiet of th' Italian sky; 
But calm, and grateful, prayerful and sincere 
As Christian freeman, only, gathering here, 
We dedicate our fair and lofty Hall, 
Pillar and arch, entablature and wall. 
As Virtue's shrine — as Liberty's abode — 
Sacred to Freedom, and to Freedom's God ! 



ICO WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Oh! loftier Halls, 'neath brighter skies than 

these, 
Stood darkly mirror 'd in the ^gean seas, 
Pillar and shrine — and life-like statues seen, 
Graceful and pure the marble shafts between, 
Where glorious Athens from her rocky hill 
Saw Art and Beauty subject to her will — 
And the chaste temple, and the classic grove — 
The hall of sages — and the bowers of love. 
Arch, fane, and column, graced the shores, and 

gave 
Their shadows to the blue Saronic wave ; 
And statelier rose, on Tiber's winding side, 
The Pantheon's dome — the Coliseum's pride — 
The Capitol, whose arches backward flung 
The deep, clear cadence of the Roman tongue. 
Whence stern decrees, like words of fate, went 

forth 
To the awed nations of a conquer'd earth. 
Where the proud Caesars in their glory came, 
And Brutus lighten'd from his lips of flame! 

Yet in the porches of Athena's halls. 
And in the shadows of her stately walls, 
Lurk'd the sad bondman, and his tears of woe 
Wet the cold marble with unheeded flow ; 
And fetters clank 'd beneath the silver dome 
Of the proud Pantheon of imperious Rome. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 101 

Oh! not for him — the chain 'd and stricken 

slave — 
By Tiber's shore, or blue ^gina's wave, 
In the throng'd forum, or the sages' seat, 
The bold lip pleaded, and the warm heart beat 
No soul of sorrow melted at his pain, 
No tear of pity rusted on his chain ! 

But this fair Hall, to Truth and Freedom given, 
Pledged to the Right before all earth and 

Heaven, 
A free arena for the strife of mind, 
To caste, or sect, or color unconfined. 
Shall thrill with echoes, such as ne'er of old 
From Roman Hall or Grecian Temple roH'd; 
Thoughts shall find utterance, such as never 

yet 
The Propylea or the Forum met. 
Beneath its roof no gladiator's strife 
Shall win applauses with the waste of life ; 
No lordly lictor urge the barbarous game — 
No Avanton Lais glory in her shame. 

But here the tear of sympathy shall flow. 

As the ear listens to the tale of woe ; 

Here, in stern judgment of the oppressor's 

wrong, 
Shall strong rebukings thrill on Freedom's 



102 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

No partial justice hold th' unequal scale — 
No pride of caste a brother's rights assail — 
No tyrant's mandates echo from this wall, 
Holy to Freedom and the Rights of All! 
But a fair field, where mind may close with 

mind, 
Free as the sunshine and the chainless wind ; 
Where the high trust is fix'd on Truth alone, 
And bonds and fetters from the soul are thrown ; 
Where wealth, and rank, and worldly pomp, 

and might, 
Yield to the presence of the True and Right. 

And fitting is it that this Hall should stand 
Where Pennsylvania's Founder led his band, 
From thy blue waters, Delaware ! — to press 
The virgin verdure of the wilderness. 
Here, where all Europe with amazement saw 
The soul's high freedom trammel'd by no law; 
Here, where the fierce and war-like forest men 
Gather' d in peace, around the home of Penn, 
Awed by the weapons Love alone had given. 
Drawn from the holy armory of Heaven ; 
Where Nature's voice against the bondman's 

wrong 
First found an earnest and indignant tongue ; 
Where Lay's bold massage to the proud was 

borne, 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 103 

And Keith's rebuke, and Franklin's manly 

scorn — 
Fitting it is that here, where Freedom first 
From her fair feet shook off the old world's 

dust, 
Spread her white pinions to our Western blast, 
And her free tresses to our sunshine cast, 
One Hall should rise redeem 'd from Slavery's 

ban — 
One Temple sacred to the Rights of Man ! 

Oh ! if the spirits of the parted come, 
Visiting angels, to their olden home ; 
If the dead fathers of the land look forth 
From their far dwellings, to the things of 

earth — 
Is it a dream, that with their eyes of love, 
They gaze now on us from the bowers above? 
Lay's ardent soul — and Benezet the mild. 
Meek-hearted Woolman, — and that brother- 
band. 
The sorrowing exiles from their *' Fatherland," 
Leaving their homes in Krieshiem's bowers of 

vine, 
And the blue beauty of their glorious Rhine, 
To seek amidst our solemn depths of wood, 
Freedom from man and holy peace with God, 
Who first of all their testimonial gave 
Against th' oppressor, — for the outcast slave, — 



104 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Is it a dream that such as these look down, 
And with their blessing our rejoicings crown? 
Let us rejoice, that, while the Pulpit's door 
Is barr'd against the pleaders for the poor; 
While the Church, wrangling upon points of 

faith, 
Forgets her bondmen suffering unto death ; 
While crafty Traffic and the lust of Gain 
Unite to forge Oppression's triple chain, 
One door is open, and one temple free — 
A resting-place for hunted Liberty! 
Where men may speak, unshackled and unawed, 
High words of Truth, for Freedom and for 

God. 

And when that Truth its perfect work hath 

done, 
And rich with blessings o'er our land hath 

gone; 
When not a slave beneath his yoke shall pine, 
From broad Potomac to the far Sabine ; 
When unto angel-lips at last is given 
, The silver trump of Jubilee in Heaven ; 
And from Virginia's plains — Kentucky's 

shades. 
And through the dim Floridian everglades, 
Rises^ to meet that angel-trumpet's sound, 
The voice of millions from their chains 

unbound — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 105 

Then, though this Hall be crumbling in decay, 
Its strong walls blending with the common 

clay, 
Yet, round the ruins of its strength shall stand 
The best and noblest of aransom'd land — 
Pilgrims, like those who throng around the 

shrine 
Of Mecca, or of holy Palestine ! — 
A prouder glory shall that ruin own 
Than that which lingers round the Parthenon, 
Here shall the child of after years be taught 
The work of Freedom which his fathers 

wrought — 
Told of the trials of the present hour, 
Our weary strife with prejudice and power, — 
How the high errand quicken'd woman's soul, 
And touch 'd her lip as with the living coal — 
How Freedom's martyrs kept their lofty faith, 
True and unwavering, unto bonds and death. ■ — 
The pencil's art shall sketch the ruin'd Hall, 
The Muses' garland crown its aged wall. 
And History's pen for after times record 
Its consecration unto Freedom's God! 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



107 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The Poems which follow are not devoted to the cause 
of Emancipation, but have been included in this collec- 
tion at the request of some of the author's friends. Many 
of them, in their passage from one newspaper or scrap- 
book to another, had become mutilated and im.perfect ; 
and, in some instances, changed from their original 
rhythm and sentiment, as entirely as the Palmer of 
Marmion : 

"The very mother that him bare 

Would not have known her child," 
and their publication in this form seemed necessary as 
a matter of self-defence. 

PALESTINE. 

Blest land of Judea! thrice hallowed of song 
Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like 

throng ; 
In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy 

sea, 
On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with 

thee. 

With the eye of a spirit I look on that shore, 

Where pilgrim and prophet have linger' d 

before ; 

109 



110 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

With the glide of a spirit I traverse the sod 
Made bright by the steps of the angels of God. 

Blue sea of the hills ! — in my spirit I hear 
Thy waters, Genesaret, chime on my ear : 
Where the Lowly and Just with the people sat 

down, 
And thy spray on the dust of His sandals was 

thrown. 

Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green, 
And the desolate hills of the wild Gadarene ; 
And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see 
The gleam of thy waters, O dark Galilee ! 

Hark, a sound in the valley ! where, swollen and 

strong, 
Thy river, O Kishon, is sweeping along; 
Where the Canaanite strove with Jehovah in 

vain, 
And thy torrent grew dark with the blood of 

the slain. 

There, down from his mountains stern Zebulon 

came. 
And Naphtali's stag, with his eyeballs of flame, 
And the chariots of Jabin roll'd harmlessly on, 
For the arm of the Lord was Abinoam's son! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. Ill 

There sleep the still rocks and the caverns 

which rang 
To the song which the beautiful prophetess 

sang, 
When the princes of Issachar stood by her side, 
And the shout of a host in its triumph, replied. 

Lo, Bethlehem's hill-site before me is seen, 
With the mountains around, and the valleys 

between ; 
There rested the shepherds of Judah, and there 
The song of the angels rose sweet on the air. 

And Bethany's palm trees in beauty still throw 
Their shadows at noon on the ruins below; 
But where are the sisters who hasten *d to 

greet 
The lowly Redeemer, and sit at His feet? 

I tread where the twelve in their wayfaring 

trod; 
I stand where they stood with the chosen of 

God; 
Where His blessing was heard and His lessons 

were taught, 
Where the blind were restored and the healing 

was wrought. 



112 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Oh, he-re with His flock the sad Wanderer 

came — 
These hills He toiled over in grief, are the 

same — 
The founts where He drank by the w^ayside 

still flow, 
And the same airs are blowing which breathed 

on his brow! 

And throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet, 
But the dust on her forehead, and chains on 

her feet; 
For the crown of her pride to the mocker hath 

gone. 
And the holy Shechinah is dark where it shone. 

But wherefore this dream of the earthly abode 
Of Humanity clothed in the brightness of God? 
Were my spirit but turned from the outward 

and dim, 
It could gaze, even now, on the presence of 

Him! 

Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as 

when. 
In love and in meekness, He moved among 

men; 
And the voice which breathed peace to the, 

waves of the sea. 
In the hush of my spirit would whisper to me! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 113 

And what if my feet may not tread where He 

stood, 
Nor my ears hear the dashing of Galilee's flood, 
Nor my eyes see the cross which He bow'd 

him to bear, 
Nor my knees press Gethsemane's garden of 

prayer. 

Yet, Loved of the Father, Thy Spirit is near 
To the meek, and the lowly, and penitent 

here; 
And the voice of Thy love is the same, even 

now, 
As at Bethany's tomb, or on Olivet's brow. 

Oh, the outward hath gone !— but, in glor3^ and 

power, 
The Spirit surviveth the things of an hour ; 
Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame 
On the heart's secret altar is burning the same. 



114 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



CHRIST IN THE TEMPEST. 

Storm on the heaving- waters! — The vast sky 
Is stooping with its thunder. Cloud on cloud 
Rolls heavily in the darkness, like a shroud 
Shaken by midnight's Angel from on high, 
Through the thick sea-mist, faintly and afar, 
Ghorazin's watch-light glimmers like a star, 
And, momently, the ghastly cloud-fires play 
On the dark sea-wall of Capernaum's bay, 
And tower and turret into light spring forth 
Like spectres starting from the storm-swept 

earth ; 
And, vast and awful, Tabor's mountain form, 
Its Titan forehead naked to the storm, 
Towers for one instant, full and clear, and then 
Blends with the blackness and the cloud again. 

And it is very terrible ! — The roar 

Ascendeth unto Heaven, and thunders back. 
Like the response of demons, from the black 
Rifts of the hanging tempest — yawning o'er 
The wild waves in their torment. Hark! — 
the cry 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 115 

Of Strong man in peril, piercing through 
The uproar of the waters and the sky, 

As the rent bark one moment rides to view, 
On the tall billows, with the thunder cloud 
Closing around, above her, like a shroud ! 

He stood upon the reeling deck — His form 
Made visible by the lightning, and His brow. 
Pale, and uncover'd to the rushing storm. 

Told of a triumph man may never know — 
Power underived and mighty — "Peace — be 
still!" 

The great waves heard Him, and the storm's 
loud tone 
Went moaning into silence at His will ; 

And the thick clouds, where yet the light- 
ning shone. 

And slept the latent thunder, roll'd away, 
Until no trace of tempest lurk'd behind, 
Changing upon the pinions of the wind. 
To stormless wanderers, beautiful and gay. 

Dread Ruler of the tempest! Thou before 
Whose presence boweth the uprisen storm — 

To whom the waves do homage round the shore 
Of many an Island empire ! — if the form 

Of the frail dust beneath Thine eye may claim 
Thy infinite regard — oh, breathe upon 



116 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

The storm and darkness of man's soul the same 

Quiet, and peace, and humbleness which came 

O'er the roused waters, where Thy voice had 

gone 

A minister of power — to conquer in Thy name! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 117 



THE FEMALE MARTYR. 

Mary G , aged i8, a "Sister of Charity," died in 

one of our Atlantic cities, during the prevalence of the 
Indian cholera, while in voluntary attendance upon the 
sick. 

** Bring out your dead!" the midnight street 
Heard and gave back the hoarse, low call; 
Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet — 
Glanced through the dark the coarse white 
sheet — 
Her coffin and her pall. 
*'What — only one!" the brutal hackman said, 
As, with an oath, he spurn 'd away the dead. 

How sunk the inmost hearts of all, 
As roird that dead-cart slowly by, 

With creaking wheel and harsh foot-fall ! 

The dying turn'd him to the wall. 
To hear it and to die ! — 

Onward it roll'd; while oft its driver stay'd, 

And hoarsely clamor 'd, "Ho! — bring out your 
dead." 

It paused beside the burial-place ; 

"Toss in your load!" — and it was done. — 



118 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

With quick hand and averted face, 
Hastily to the grave's embrace 

They cast them, one by one — 
Stranger and friend — the evil and the just, 
Together trodden in the church-yard dust! 

And thou, young martyr! — thou wast here — 

No white-robed sisters round thee trod — 
Nor holy hymn, nor funeral prayer 
Rose through the damp and noisome air, 

Giving thee to thy God ; 
Nor flower, nor cross, nor hallow 'd taper gave 
Grace to the dead, and beauty to the grave ! 

Yet, gentle sufferer! — there shall be, 

In every heart of kindly feeling, 
A rite as holy paid to thee 
As if beneath the convent-tree 

Thy sisterhood were kneeling, 
At vesper hours, like sorrowing angels keeping 
Their tearful watch around thy place of sleep- 
ing. 

For thou wast one in whom the light 

Of Heaven's own love was kindled well, 
Enduring with a martyr's might, 
Through weary day and wakeful night, 

Far more than words may tell : 
Gentle, and meek, and lowly, and unknown^ 
Thy mercies measured by thy God alone ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 119 

Where manly hearts were failing, — where 
The throngful street grew foul with death, 

O high-souled martyr! — thou wast there. 

Inhaling from the loathsome air 
Poison with every breath. 

Yet shrinking not from offices of dread 

For the wrung dying, and the unconscious dead. 

And, where the sickly taper shed 

Its light through vapers, damp, confined, 

Hush'd as a seraph's fell thy tread — 

A new Electra by the bed 
Of suffering human-kind ! 

Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay. 

To that pure hope which fadeth not away. 

Innocent teacher of the high 

And holy mysteries of Heaven! 
How turned to thee each glazing eye, 
In mute and awful sympathy, 

As thy prayers were given ; 
And the o'er-hovering Spoiler wore, the while 
An angel's features — a deliverer's smile! 

A blessed task ! — and worthy one 

Who, turning from the world, as thou. 
Ere being's pathway had begun 
To leave its spring-time flower and sun, 



120 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Had seal'd her early vow — 
Giving to God her beauty and her youth, 
Her pure affections and her guileless truth. 

Earth may not claim thee. Nothing here 
Could be for thee a meet reward; 

Thine is a treasure far more dear — 

Eye hath not seen it, nor the ear 
Of living mortal heard, — 

The joys prepared — the promised bliss above — 

The holy presence of Eternal Love! 

Sleep on in peace. The earth has not 
A nobler name than thine shall be. 

The deeds by martial manhood wrought, 

The lofty energies of thought. 
The fire of poesy — 

These have but frail and fading honors, — thine 

Shall time unto Eternity consign. 

Yea — and, when thrones shall crumble down^ 
And human pride and grandeur fall, 

The herald's line of long renown — 

The m.itre and the kingly crown — 
Perishing glories all ! 

The pure devotion of thy generous heart 

Shall live in Heaven, of which it was a part. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 121 



"knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?" — 

Job xxxviii. ^s- 

Look unto heaven I 
The still and solemn stars are burning there, 
Like altars lighted in the upper air, 
And to the worship of the great God given, 
Where the pure spirits of the unsinning dead, 
Redeemed and sanctified from Earth, might 
shed 

The holiness of prayer. 

Look ye above ! 
The earth is glorious with its summer wreath ; 
The tall trees bend with verdure; and, beneath 
Young flowers are blushing like unwhisper'd 

love. 
Yet these will change — earth's glories be no 

more, 
And all her bloom and greenness fade before 
The ministry of Death. 

Then gaze not there. 
God's constant miracle — the star- wrought sky 
Bends o'er ye, lifting silently on high, 
As with an Angel's hand, the soul of prayer; 



122 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

And Heaven's own language to the pure of 

Earth, 
Written in stars at Nature's might birth, 
Burns on the gazing eye. 

Oh, turn ye, then, 
And bend the knee of worship ; and the eyes 
Of the pure stars shall smile, with glad sur- 
prise, 
At the deep reverence of the sons of men. 
Oh! bend in worship, till those stars grow dim, 
And the skies vanish, at the thought of Him 
Whose light beyond them lies! 



WHITTIER-^ POEMS. 123 



HYMN. 

FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE. 

A hymn more, O my lyre ! 
Praise to the God above, 
Of joy and life and love. 

Sweeping its strings of fire ! 

Oh, who the speed of bird and wind 

And sunbeam's glance will lend to me 
That, soaring upward, I may find 

My resting-place and home in Thee? — 
Thou, whom my soul, midst doubt and gloom, 

Adoreth with a fervent flame — 
Mysterious Spirit ! unto whom 

Pertain nor sign nor name ! 

Swiftly my lyre's soft murmurs go. 

Up from the cold and joyless earth. 
Back to the God who bade them flow 

Whose moving Spirit sent them forth. 
But as for me, O God ! for me, 

The lowly creature of Thy will, 
Lingering and sad, I sigh to Thee, 

An earth-bound pilgrim still ! 



124 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Was not my spirit born to shine 

Where yonder stars and suns are glowing? 
To breathe with them the light divine, 

From God's own holy altar flowing? 
To be, indeed, where'er the soul 

In dreams hath thirsted for so long — 
A portion of Heaven's glorious whole 

Of loveliness and song? 

Oh! watchers of the stars at night, 

Who breathe their fire, as we the air — 
Suns, thunders, stars, and rays of light, 

Oh! say, is He — the Eternal, there? 
Bend there around His awful throne 

The seraph's glance, the angel's knee? 
Or are thy inmost depths His own, 

O wild and mighty sea? 

Thoughts of my soul, how swift ye go — 

Swift as the eagle's glance of fire, 
Or arrows from the archer's bow, 

To the far aim of your desire ! 
Thought after thought, ye thronging rise. 

Like spring-doves from the startled wood, 
Bearing like them your sacrifice 

Of music unto God! 

And shall these thoughts of joy and love 
Come back again no more to me? 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 125 

Returning like the Patriarch's dove, 
Wing- weary from the eternal sea, 

To bear within my longing arms 
The promise-bough of kindlier skies 

Pluck 'd from the green, immortal palms 
Which shadow Paradise? 

All-moving Spirit I — freely forth 

At Thy command the strong wind goes; 
Its errand to the passive earth, 

Nor art can stay, nor strength oppose. 
Until it folds its weary wing 

Once more within the hand divine ; 
So, weary from its wandering, 

My spirit turns to Thine ! 

Child of the sea, the mountain stream, 

From its dark caverns, hurries on, 
Ceaseless, by night and morning's beam, 

By evening's star and noontide's sun, 
Until at last it sinks to rest, 

O'erwearied, in the waiting sea. 
And moans upon its mother's breast — 

So turns my soul to Thee ! 

O Thou who bid' St the torrent flow, 
Who lendest wings unto the wind — 

Mover of all things! where art Thou? 
Oh, whither shall I go to find 



126 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

The secret of Thy resting-place? 

Is there no holy wing for me, 
That, soaring, I may search the space 

Of highest Heaven for Thee? 

Oh, would I were as free to rise 

As leaves on Autumn's whirlwind borne — 
The arrowy light of sunset skies. 

Or sound, or ray, or star of morn 
Which melts in heaven at twilight's close, 

Or aught which soars uncheck'd and free 
Through Earth and Heaven; that I might 
lose 

Myself in finding Thee ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 127 



FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE. 

When the breath divine is flowing 
Zephyr-like o'er all things going, 
And as the touch of viewless fingers, 
Softly on my soul it lingers, 
Open to a breath the lightest, 
Conscious of a touch the slightest — 
As some calm still lake, whereon 
Sinks the snowy-bosom 'd swan, 
And the glistening water-rings 
Circle round her itioving wings : 

When my upward gaze is turning 
Where the stars of heaven are burning 
Through the deep and dark abyss — 
Flowers of midnight's wilderness, 
Blowing with the evening's breath 
Sweetly in their Maker's path : 

When the breaking day is flushing 
All the East, and light is gushing 
Upward through the horizon's haze, 
Sheaf -like, with its thousand rays 
Spreading, until all above 



128 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Overflows with joy and love, 

And below, on earth's green bosom, 

All is changed to light and blossom : 

When my waking fancies over 
Forms of brightness flit and hover, 
Holy as the seraphs are, 
Who by Zion's fountains wear 
On their foreheads, white and broad, 
"Holiness unto the Lord!" 
When, inspired with rapture high. 
It would seem a single sigh 
Could a world of love create — 
That my life could know no date, 
And my eager thoughts could fill 
Heaven and Earth, o'erflowing still. 

Then, O Father!— Thou alone, 

From the shadow of Thy throne. 

To the sighing of my breast 

And its rapture answerest. 

All my thoughts, which, upward winging, 

Bathe where Thy own light is springing 

All my yearnings to be free 

Are as echoes answering Thee ! 

Seldom upon lips of mine 

Father! rests that name of Thine — 

Deep within my inmost breast, 




On Nantucket's sea-worn isle. "—Page 133. 

Wliittier's Poems. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 129 

In the secret place of mind, 
Like an awful Presence shrined, 

Doth its dread Idea rest ! 

Hnsh'd and holy dwells it there — 

Prompter of the silent prayer, 

Lifting np my spirit's eye 

And its faint but earnest cry, 

From its dark and cold abode. 

Unto Thee, my Guide and God! 



130 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



THE FAMILIST'S HYMN. 

The "Pilgrims" of New England, even in their wil- 
derness home, were not exempted from the sectarian 
contentions which agfitated the mother country after 
the downfall of Charles the First, and of the Established 
Episcopacy. The Quakers, Baptists, and Catholics were 
banished, on pain of death, from the Massachusetts 
Colony. One Samuel Gordon, a bold and eloquent de- 
claimer, after preaching for a time in Boston, against the 
doctrines of the Puritans, and declaring that their 
churches were mere human devices, and their sacra- 
ment and baptism an abomination, was driven out of 
the State's jurisdiction, and compelled to seek a resi- 
dence among the savages. He gathered round him a 
considerable number of converts, who, like the primi- 
tive Christians, shared all things in common. His opin- 
ions, however, were so troublesome to the leading clergy 
of the Colony, that they instigated an attack upon his 
"Family" by an armed force, which seized upon the 
principal men in it, and brought them into Massachu- 
setts, where they were sentenced to be kept at hard 
labor in several towns (one only in each town), during 
the pleasure of the General Court, they being forbidden 
under severe penalties to utter any of their religious 
sentiments, except to such ministers as might labor for 
their conversion. They were unquestionably sincere in 
their opinions, and whatever may have been their errors, 
deserve to be ranked among those who have in all ages 
suffered for the freedom of conscience. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 131 

Father! to thy suffering poor 

Strength and grace and faith impart. 
And with Thy own love restore 

Comfort to the broken heart ! 
Oh, the failing ones confirm 

With a holier strength of zeal ! — 
Give Thon not the feeble worm 

Helpless to the Spoiler's heel! 

Father! for Thy hol}^ sake 

We are spoil 'd and hunted thus; 
Joyful, for Thy truth we take 

Bonds and burthens unto us: 
Poor, and weak, and robb'd of all, 

Weary with our daily task, 
That Thy truth may never fall 

Through our weakness. Lord, we ask. 

Round our fired and wasted homes 

Flits the forest-bird unscared, 
And, at noon, the wild beast comes 

Where our frugal meal was shared. 
For the song of praises there 

Shrieks the crow the livelong day. 
For the sound of evening prayer 

Howls the evil beast of prey ! 

Sweet the songs we loved to sing 
Underneath Thy holy sky — 



132 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Words and tones that used to bring 
Tears of joy in every eye, — 

Dear the wrestling hours of prayer, 
When we gather'd knee to knee, 

Blameless youth and hoary hair, 
Bow'd, O God, alone to Thee. 

As Thine early children, Lord, 

Shared their wealth and daily bread, 
Even so, with one accord, 

We, in love, each other fed. 
Not with us the miser's hoard. 

Not with us his grasping hand ; 
Equal, round a common board. 

Drew our meek and brother band! 

Safe our quiet Eden lay 

When the war-whoop stirr'd the land, 
And the Indian turn'd away 

From our home his bloody hand. 
Well that forest-ranger saw. 

That the burthen and the curse 
Of the white man's cruel law 

Rested also upon us. 

Torn apart, and driven forth 
To our toiling hard and long. 

Father ! from the dust of earth 
Lift we still our grateful song! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 133 

Grateful — that in bonds we share 
In Thy love which maketh free ; 

Joyful — that the wrong^s we bear, 
Draw us nearer, Lord, to Thee ! 

Grateful! — that, where'er we toil — 

By Wachuset's wooded side, 
On Nantucket's sea-worn isle. 

Or by wild Nepon set's tide — 
Still, in spirit, we are near. 

And our evening hymns, which rise 
Separate and discordant here. 

Meet and mingle in the skies! 

Let the scoffer scorn and mock, 

Let the proud and evil priest 
Rob the needy of his flock, 

For his wine-cup and his feast, — 
Redden not Thy bolts in store 

Through the blackness of Thy skies! 
For the sighing of the poor 

Wilt Thou not, at length, arise? 

Worn and wasted, oh, how long 
Shall Thy trodden poor complain ! 

In Thy name they bear the wrong. 
In Thy cause the bonds of pain ! 



134 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Melt Oppression's heart of steel, 
Let the haughty priesthood see, 

And their blinded followers feel. 
That in us they mock at Thee ! 

In Thy time, O Lord of hosts, 

Stretch abroad that hand to save 
Which of old, on Egypt's coasts. 

Smote apart the Red Sea's wave! 
Lead us from this evil land. 

From the Spoiler set us free, 
And once more our gather'd band. 

Heart to heart, shall worship Thee. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 135 



THE CALL OF THE CHRISTIAN. 

Not always as the whirlwind's rush 

On Horeb's mount of fear, 
Not always as the burning bush 

To Midian's shepherd seer, 
Nor as the awful voice which came 

To Israel's prophet bards, 
Nor as the tongues of cloven flame, 

Nor gift of fearful words — 

Not always thus, with outward sign 

Of fire or voice from Heaven, 
The message of a truth divine — 

The call of God is given ! 
Awakening in the human heart 

Love for the true and right — 
Zeal for the Christian's "better part," 

Strength for the Christian's fight. 

Nor unto manhood's heart alone 

The holy influence steals: 
Warm with a rapture not its own, 

The heart of woman feels ! 



136 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

As she who by Samaria's wall 
The Saviour's errand sought — 

As those who with the fervent Paul 
And meek Aquila wrought. 

Or those meek ones whose martyrdom 

Rome's gather 'd grandeur saw: 
Or those who in their Alpine home 

Braved the Crusader's war, 
When the green Yaudois, trembling, heard, 

Through all its vales of death, 
The martyr's song of triumph pour'd 

From woman's failing breath. 

Oh, gently, by a thousand things, 

Which o'er our spirits pass. 
Like breezes o'er the harp's fine strings, 

Or vapors o'er a glass, 
Leaving their token strange and new 

Of music or of shade. 
The summons to the right and true 

And merciful is made. 

Oh, then, if gleams of Truth and Light 

Flash o'er the waiting wind, 
Unfolding to our mental sight 

The wants of human kind ; 
If, brooding over human grief, 

The earnest wish is known 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 137 

To soothe and gladden with relief 
An anguish not oui own. 

Though heralded with naught of fear, 

Or outward sigh, or show ; 
Though only to the inward ear 

It whispers soft and low : 
Though dropping, as the manna fell, 

Unseen — yet from above — 
Holy and gentle — heed it well! 

The call to truth and love. 



138 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



THE FROST SPIRIT. 



He comes — he comes — the Frost Spirit comes! 

You many trace his footsteps now 
On the naked woods and the blasted fields 

and the brown hill's wither'd brow. 
He has smitten the leaves of the g"ray old trees 

where their pleasant green came forth, 
And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, 

have shaken them down to earth. 

He comes — he comes — the Frost Spirit comes ! 

— from the frozen Labrador — 
From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, 

which the white bear wanders o'er — 
V/here the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, 

and the luckless forms below 
In the sunless cold of the atmosphere into 

marble statues grow ! 

He comes — he comes — the Frost Spirit comes ! 

— on the rushing Northern blast, 
And the dark Norwegian pines have bow'd as 

his fearful breath went past. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 139 

With an unscorch'd wing he has hurried on, 

where the fires of Hecla glow 
On the darkly beautiful sky above and the 

ancient ice below. 

He comes — he comes — the Frost Spirit comes! 

and the quiet lake shall feel 
The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and 

ring to the skater's heel; 
And the streams which danced on the broken 

rocks, or sang to the leaning grass, 
Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in 

mournful silence pass. 

He comes — he comes — the Frost Spirit comes! 

— let us meet him as we may. 
And turn with the light of the parlor- fire his 

evil power away ; 
And gather closer the circle round, when that 

firelight dances high, 
And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend 

as his sounding wing goes by ! 



140 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE. 

"It hath beene as it were especially rendered unto 
mee and made plaine and legible to my understandynge 
that a great worshipp is going on among the thyngs of 
God."— Grait. 

The Ocean looketh tip to Heaven, 

As 't were a living thing, 
The homage of its waves is given 

In ceaseless worshipping. 

They kneel upon the sloping sand, 

As bends the human knee, 
A beautiful and tireless band, 

The Priesthood of the Sea! 

They pour the glittering treasures out 
Which in the deep have birth. 

And chant their awful hymns about 
The advancing hills of earth. 

The green earth sends its incense up 
From every mountain shrine, 

From every flower and dewy cup 
That greeteth the sunshine. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 141 

The mists are lifted from the rills 
Like the white wings of prayer. 

They lean above the ancient hills 
As doing homage there. 

The forest tops are lowly cast 

O'er breezy hill and glen, 
As if a prayerful spirit pass'd 

On Nature as on men. 

The clouds weep o'er the fallen world 

E'en as repentant love; 
Ere to the blessed breeze unfurl 'd 

They fade in light above. 

The sky is as a temple's arch, 

The blue and wavy air 
Is glorious with the spirit-march 

Of messengers of prayer. 

The gentle moon — the kindling sun — 

The many stars are given. 
As shrines to burn earth's incense on — 

The altar-fires of Heaven ! 



142 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



LINES, 

Written in the Common place Book of a young lady. 

* 'Write, write!" Dear Cousin, since thy word, 
Like that my ancient namesake heard 

On Patmos, may not be denied, 
I offer for thy^ page a lay 
Breathing of Beauty pass'd away — 
Of Grace and Genius, Love and Truth, 
All which can add a charm to youth, 

To Virtue and to Heaven allied. 
Forgive me, if the lay be such 

As may not suit thy hours of gladness; 
Forgive me, if it breathe too much 

Of mourning and of sadness. 
It may be well that tears, at whiles. 
Should take the place of Folly's smiles. 
When 'neath some Heaven-directed blow. 
Like those of Horeb's rock, they flow; 
For sorrows are in mercy given 
To fit the chasten 'd soul for Heaven; 
Prompting, with woe and weariness, 

Our yearning for that better sky, 
Which, as the shadows close on this. 

Grows brighter to the longing eye. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 143 

For each unwelcome blow may break, 

Perchance, some chain which binds us here ; 
And clouds around the heart may make 

The vision of our Faith more clear ; 
As through the shadowy veil of even 
The eye looks farthest into Heaven, 
On gleams of star and depths of blue 
The fervid sunshine never knew ! 

"The parted spirit, 

Knoweth it not our sorrow? Answereth not 
Its blessing to our tears?" 

The circle is broken — one seat is forsaken, — ■ 
One bud from the tree of our friendship is 

shaken — 
One heart from among us no longer shall thrill 
With the spirit of gladness, or darken with ill. 

Weep ! — Lonely and lowly, are slumbering now 
The light of her glances, the pride of her brow. 
Weep! — Sadly and long shall we listen in vain 
To hear the soft tones of her welcome again. 

Give our tears to the dead! For humanity's 

claim 
From its silence and darkness is ever the same: 
The hope of that World whose existence is 

bliss 
May not stifle the tears of the mourners of this. 



144 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

For, oh! if one glance the freed spirit can 

throw 
On the scene of its troubled probation below, 
Than the pride of the marble — the pomp of 

the dead — 
To that glance will be dearer the tears which 

we shed. 

Oh, who can forget the rich light of her smile, 
Over lips moved with music and feeling the 

while — 
The eye's deep enchantment, dark, dream-like, 

and clear, 
In the glow of its gladness — the shade of its 

tear. 

And the charm of her features, while over the 

whole 
Play'd the hues of the heart and the sunshine 

of soul, — 
And the tones of her voice, like the music which 

seems 
Murmur' d low in our ears by the Angel of 

dreams ! 

But holier and dearer our memories hold 
Those treasures of feeling, more precious than 

gold— 
The love and the kindness, — the pity which 

gave 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 145 

Fresh hopes to the living and wreaths for the 

grave — 
The heart ever open to Charity's claim, 
Unmoved from its purpose by censure and 

blame, 
While vainly alike on her eye and her ear 
Fell the scorn of the heartless, the jesting and 

jeer. 

For, though spotless herself, she could sorrow 

for them 
Who sullied with evil the spirit's pure gem; 
And a sigh or a tear could the erring reprove, 
And the sting of reproof was still temper 'd by 

love. 
As a cloud of the sunset, slow melting in heaven, 
As a star that is lost when the daylight is given, 
As a glad dream of slumber, which weakens in 

bliss. 
She hath pass'd to the world of the holy 

from this. 

She hath pass'd ! — but, oh ! sweet as the flowrets, 

that bloom 
From her last lonely dwelling — the dust of her 

tomb — 
The charm of her virtues, as heaven's own. 

breath. 

Shall rise like an incense from darkness and 

death. 
10 



146 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



THE WATCHER. 

"And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, 
and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning 
of harvest until water dropped upon them out of Heaven, 
and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them 
by day, nor the beasts of the field by night." — 2 Sam. 



Tall men and kingly-brow'd! — they led them 
forth 
Bound for the sacrifice. It was high noon ; 
And ancient Gibeah, emptied of her life, 
Rose silently before the harvest sun. 
Her dwellers had gone out before the walls, 
"With a stern purpose; and her maidens lean'd 
Breathless for its fulfillment, from the hills, 
Uncheer'd by reaper's song. The harvest lay 
Stinted and sere upon their parched tops. 
The streams had perish 'd in their goings on; 
And the deep fountains fail'd. The fervent 

sun, 
Unchasten'd by a cloud, for months had shone 
A lidless eye in heaven ; and all the sky 
Glow d as a furnace, and the prodigal dew 
SVith the scorch' d earth held no companionship. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 147 

A curse was over Israel. Unjudged crime 
Had wrought it in the elements. Her soil 
Was unbless'd as the heathen's; and the 

plagues 
Of those who know not God, and bow them 

down 
To a strange worship, had been meted her. 

The sacrifice was finish 'd. Gibeon roll'd 
Back like a torrent througli the city gates 
Her gather'd thousands ; and her victimi lay 
Naked beneath the brazen arch of heavt n, 
On the stain'd Rock of Sacrifice. The sun 
Went down his heated pathway with a slow 
And weary progress, as he loved to gaze 
On the dark horror of his burning noon — 
The sacrifice of Innocence for Guilt, 
Whose blood had sent its sleepless murmur up 
To the Avenger's ear, until fierce wrath 
Burn'd over earth and heaven, and Vengeance 

held 
The awful master of the elements. 

Who stealeth from the city, in the garb 
Which tokens the heart's sorrow, and which 

seems 
Around her wasted form to shadow forth 
The visitation of dark grief within? 



148 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Lo ! — she hath pass'd the valley, and her foot 

Is on the Rock of Sacrifice — and now 

She stoopeth over the unburied dead, 

And moves her lip, but speaks not. It is 

strange 
And very fearful I The descending sun 
Is pausing like a fire-wing'd Angel on 
The bare hills of the West, and, fierce and red. 
His last rays fall aslant the place of blood. 
Coloring its dark stains deeper. Lo ! she 

kneels 
To cover, with a trembling hand, the cold 
And ghastly work of death — those desecrate 
And darken'd temples of the living soul! 

Her task was finish'd; and she went away 
A little distance, and, as night stole on 
With dim starlight and shadow, she sat down 
Upon a jutting fragment of the rock — 
A solitary watcher. The red glow 
That wrestled with the darkness, and sent up 
Its spear-like lines of light until they waned 
Into the dark blue zenith, pass'd away, 
-And, from the broad and shadow'd West, the 

stars 
vShone through substantial blackness. Mid- 

niofht came : 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 149 

The wind was groaning on the hills and 

through 
The naked branches of their perishing trees, 
And strange sounds blended with it. The 

gaunt wolf, 
Scenting the place of slaughter, with his long 
And most offensive howl did ask for blood ; 
And the hyena sat upon the cliff, 
His red eye glowing terribly ; and low, 
But frequent and most fearfully, his growl 
Came to the watcher's ear. Alone she sat, 
Unmoving as her resting-place of rock. 
Fear for herself she felt not — every tie 
That once took hold on life with aught of love 
Was broken utterly. Her eye was fix'd. 
Stony and motionless, upon the pall 
Which veil'd her princely dead. And this 

was love 
In its surpassing power — yea, love as strong 
As that which binds the peopled Universe, 
And pure as Angel- worship, when the just 
And beautiful of Heaven are bow'd in prayer 1 

The night stole into morning, and the sun, 
Red and unwelcome, rode without a cloud, 
And there was Rizpah still, woe-worn and pale ; 
And yet in her dark eye and darker hair, 
And in the marble and uplifted brow, 



150 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

And the much wasted figure, might be seen 
A wreck of perfect beauty, such as bow'd 
The throned one of Israel at her feet, 
Low as the trampled Philistine had knelt 
Before his mailed presence. Not a tear 
Glisten'd on eye or cheek, but still she gazed 
On the dark veil of sackcloth with a strange 
And fixed earnestness. The sky again 
Redden 'd with heat, and the unmoisten'd earth 
Was like the ashen surface of the hush'd 
But perilous volcano. Rizpah bore 
The fever of noon-time, with a stern 
And awful sense of duty nerving her. 
In her devotedness. She might not leave 
The high place of her watching for the shade 
Of cluster'd palm-trees; and the lofty rocks, 
Casting their grim and giant shadows down. 
Might not afford her shelter; for the sweep 
Of heavy wings went over her like clouds 
Crossing the sunshine, and most evil birds. 
Dark and obscene, — the jaguars of the air! — 
From all the hills had gather 'd. Far and shy 
The somber raven sat upon his rock. 
And his vile mate did mock him. The vast 

wing 
Of the great eagle, stooping from the sun, 
Winnow'd the cliffs above her! 

Day by day. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 151 

Beneath the scorching of the unveird sun, 
And the unweeping solitude of night, 
Pale Rizpah kept her vigils ; and her prayer 
Went up at morn and eventide, that Earth 
Might know the gentle visitings of rain 
And be accurs'd no more. And when at last 
God thunder'd in the heavens, and clouds 

came up 
From the long slumber, and the great rain fell 
And the parch'd earth drank deeply, Rizpah 

knew 
Her prayers were answer'd, and she knelt again 
In earnest gratitude; and when the storm 
Roll'd off before the sunshine, kindly hands 
Convey'd away her wasted charge, and gave 
The sons of Saul a sepulchre with him. 



152 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN. 

"Away from the ruin! — Oh, hurry ye on, 
While the sword of the Angel yet slumbers 

undrawn ! 
Away from the doom'd and deserted of God-^ 
Away, for the Spoiler is rushing abroad!" 

The warning was spoken — the righteous had 

gone, 
Apd the proud ones of Sodom were feasting 

alone ; 
All gay was the banquet — the revel was long 
With the pouring of wine and the breathing of 

song. 

'Twas an evening of beauty. The air was per- 
fume, 

The earth was all greenness, the trees were 
all bloom; 

And softly the delicate viol was heard, 

Like the murmur of love or the notes of a bird. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 153 

And beautiful creatures moved down in the 

dance, 
With the magic of motion and sunshine of 

glance ; 
And white arms wreath 'd lightly, and tresses 

fell free, 
As the plumage of birds in some tropical tree. 

And the shrine of the idol was lighted on high, 
For the bending of knee and the homage of 

eye; 
And the worship was blended with blasphemy's 

word, 
And the wine-bibber scoff 'd at the name of the 

Lord! 

Hark ! the growl of the thunder — the quaking 

of earth ! 
Woe — woe to the worship, and woe to the 

mirth ! 
The black sky has open'd — there's flame in the 

air — 
The red arm of vengeance is lifted and bare ! 

And the shriek of the dying rose wild where 

the song 
And the low tone of love had been whispered 

along; 



154 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

For the fierce flames went lightly o'er palace 

and bower, 
Like the red tongues of demons, to blast and 

devour ! 

Down — down, on the fallen, the red ruin rain*d 
And the reveler sank with his wine-cup un- 

drain'd; 
The foot of the dancer, the music's lov'd thrill. 
And the shout and the laughter grew suddenly 

still. 

The last throb of anguish was fearfully given ; 
The last eye glared forth in its madness on 

Heaven ! 
The last groan of horror rose wildly and vain. 
And death brooded over the pride of the Plain ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 155 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 

Sunlight upon Judea's hills! 

And on the waves of Galilee — 
On Jordan's stream and on the rills 

That gathered to the sleeping sea ! 
Most freshly from the green wood springs 
The light breeze on its scented wings ; 
And gayly quiver in the sun 
The cedar tops of Lebanon ! 

A few more hours — a change hath come 

Dark as a brooding thunder-cloud ! 
The shouts of wrath and joy are dumb, 

And proud knees unto earth are bow'd: 
A change is on the hill of Death, 
The helmed watchers pant for breath, 
And turn with wild and maniac eyes 
From the dark scene of sacrifice ! 

That Sacrifice — the death of Him — 
The High and ever Holy One — 

Well may the conscious Heaven grow dim,. 
And blacken the beholding Sun ! 



156 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

The wonted light had fled away, 
Night settles on the middle day, 
And Earthquake from his cavern'd bed 
Is v/aking with a thrill of dread ! 

The dead are waking underneath ! 

Their prison door is rent away! 
And, ghastly with the seal of death. 

They wander in the eye of day! 
The temple of the Cherubim — 
The House of God — is cold and dim; 
A curse is on its trembling walls, 
Its mighty veil asunder falls ! 

Well may the cavern-depths of Earth 
Be shaken, and her mountains nod ; 
Well may the sheeted dead come forth 

To gaze upon a suffering God! 
Well may the temple-shrine grow dim. 
And shadows veil the Cherubim, 
When He, the chosen One of Heaven, 
A sacrifice for guilt is given ! 

And shall the sinful heart, alone. 
Behold unmov'd th' atoning hour. 

When Nature trembles on her throne. 
And death resigns his iron power? 



J 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 157 

Oh, shall the heart — whose sinfulness 
Gave keenness to His sore distress, 
And added to Plis tears of blood- 
Refuse its trembling gratitude ! 



158 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



THE CITY OF REFUGE. 

Joshua, chapter sx. 

"Away from thy people, thou shedder of 

blood — 
Away to the refuge appointed of God ! 
Xay, pause not to look for thy household or kin, 
For Death is behind thee, thou worker of sin. 

"Away! — look not back, though that sorrow- 
ful one, 

The mother who bore thee, shall wail for her 
son 

Nor stay when thy wife, as a beautiful blos- 
som, 

Shall clasp thy fair child to her desolate bosom. 

"Away with thy face to the refuge afar 
In the glow of the sun — in the eye of the star; 
Though the Simoom breathe o'er thee, oppres- 
sive and warm, 
Rest not by the fountain nor under the palm. 

"Away! for the kinsman of him thou hast 
slain 



I 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 159 

Has breathed on thy head the dark curses of 

Cain; 
The cry of his vengeance shall follow thy 

path — 
The tramp of his footstep, the shout of his 

wrath." 

And the slayer sprang up as the warning was 

said, 
And the stones of the altar rang out to his 

tread ; 
The wail of his household was lost on his ear — 
He spoke not, he paused not, he turn'd not to 

hear, 

He fled to the desert — he turn'd him not back 
When the rush of the sand-storm grew loud in 

his track. 
Nor paused till his vision fell, grateful and 

glad. 
On the green hills of Gilead — the white tents 

of Gad. 

Oh, thiis, when the crimes and the errors of 

Earth 
Have driven her children as wanderers forth, 
To the bow'd and the broken of spirit is given 
The hope of a refuge — the refuge of Heaven ! 



160 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



ISABELLA OF AUSTRIA. 

"Isabella, Infanta of Parma, and consort of Joseph of 
Austria, predicted her own death, immediately after 
her marriage with the Emperor. Amidst the gayety 
and splendor of Vienna and Presburg, she was reserved 
and melancholy ; she believed that Heaven had given 
her a view of the future, and that her child, the name- 
sake of the great Marie Theresa, would perish with her. 
Her prediction was fulfilled." 

'Midst the palace-bowers of Hungary, imperial 

Presburg's pride, — 
With the noble-born and beautiful assembled 

at her side, 
She stood, beneath the summer heaven, — the 

soft winds sighing on, * 
Stirring the green and arching boughs, like 

dancers in the sun. 
The beautiful pomegranate's gold, the snowy 

orange- bloom. 
The lotus and the creeping vine, the rose's 

meek perfume. 
The willow crossing with its green some statue's 

marble hair, — 
All that might charm th' exquisite sense, or 

light the soul, was there. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 161 

But she — a monarch's treasured one — iean'd 
gloomily apart, 

With her dark eye tearfully cast down and a 
shadow on her heart. 

Young, beautiful, and dearly loved, what sor- 
row hath she known? 

Are not the hearts and swords of all held 
sacred as her own? 

Is not her lord the kingliest in battle-field or 
bower? — 

The foremost in the coimcil-hall, or at the ban- 
quet-hour? 

Is not his love as pure and deep as his own 
Danube's tide? 

And wherefore in her princely home weeps 
Isabel, his bride? 

She raised her jewel'd hand and flung her veil- 
ing tresses back. 

Bathing its snowy tapering within their glossy 
black.— 

A tear fell on the orange leaves; — rich gem 
and mimic blossom. 

And fringed robe shook fearfully upon her 
sighing bosom; 

*' Smile on, smile on," she murmur'd low, 
"for all is joy around. 

Shadow and sunshine, stainless sky, soft airs 
and blossom 'd ground; 



162 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

*Tis meet the light of heart should smile when 

nature's brow is fair, 
And melody and fragrance meet, twin sisters 

of the air ! 

*'But ask not me to share with you the beauty 

of the scene — 
The fountain-fall, mosaic walk, and tessellated 

green ; 
And point not to the mild blue sky, or glorious 

summer sun ; 
I know how very fair is all the hand of God | 

hath done — 
The hills, the sky, the sun-lit cloud, the foun- 
tain leaping forth, 
The swaying trees, the scented flowers, the 

dark green robes of earth — 
I love them still; yet I have learn'd to turn 

aside from all. 
And never more my heart must own their 

sweet but fatal thrall! 

*' And I could love the noble one whose mighty 
name I bear. 

And closer to my bursting heart his hallow 'd 
image wear; 

And I could watch our sweet young flower un- 
folding day by day, 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 163 

And taste of that unearthly bliss which mothers 
only may ; 

But no, I may not cling to earth — that voice is 
in my ear, 

That shadow lingers by my side — the death- 
wail and the bier, 

The cold and starless night of death where 
day may never beam, 

The silence and the loathsomeness, the sleep 
which hath no dream ! 

"O God! to leave this fair bright world, and, 

more than all, to know 
The moment when the Spectral One shall deal 

his fearful blow; 
To know the day, the very hour; to feel the 

tide roll on ; 
To shudder at the gloom before, and weep the 

sunshine gone ; 
To count the days, the few short days, of light 

and life and breath, — 
Between me and the noisome grave — the voice- 
less home of death, — 
Alas ! — if, knowing, feeling this, I murmur at 

my doom, 
Let not thy frowning, O my God ! lend darkness 

to the tomb. 



164 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

*'Oh, I have borne my spirit up, and smiled 

amid the chill 
Remembrance of my certain doom, which 

lingers with me still : 
I would not cloud our fair child's brow, nor let 

a tear-drop dim 
The eye that met my wedded lord's, lest it 

should sadden him. 
But there are moments when the gush of feel- 
ing hath its way; 
That hidden tide of unnamed woe nor fear nor 

love may stay. 
Smile on, smile on, light-hearted ones, your 

sun of joy is high ; 
Smile on, and leave the doom'd of Heaven 

alone to weep and die." 

A funeral chant was wailing through Vienna's 

holy pile; 
A coffin with its gorgeous pall was borne along 

the aisle; 
The banners of a kingly race waved high above 

the dead; 
A mighty band of mourners came — a king was 

at its head, 
A youthful king, with mournful tread and dim 

and tearful eye — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 165 

He had not dream 'd that one so pure as his 

fair bride could die ; 
And sad and wild above the throng the funeral 

anthem rung: 
"Mourn for the hope of Austria, mourn for the 

loved and young!" 
The wail went up from other lands — the val- 
leys of the Hun, 
Fair Parma with its orange bowers and hills of 

vine and sun ; 
The lilies of imperial France droop'd as the 

sound went by. 
The long lament of cloister'd Spain was 

mingled with the cry; 
The dwellers in Colorno's halls, the Slowak at 

his cave, 
They bow'd at the Escurial, the Magyar sternly 

brave — 
All wept the early-stricken flower, and burst 

from every tongue: 
"Mourn for the dark-eyed Isabel — mourn for 

the loved and young!" 



166 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



LINES, 

Written on visiting a singular cave in Chester, N. H., 
known in the vicinity by the name of "The Devil's 
Den." 

The moon is bright on the rocky hill 

But its dwarfish pines rise gloomily still, — 

Fix'd, motionless forms in the silent air, 

The moonlight is on them, but darkness is 

there. 
The drowsy flap of the owlet's wing, 
And the stream's low gush from its hidden 

spring., 
And the passing breeze, in its flight betray'd 
By the timid shiver of leaf and blade, 
Half like a sigh and half a moan. 
The ear of the listener catches alone. 

A dim cave yawns in the rude hill-side, 
Like the jaws of a monster open'd wide, 
Where a few wild bushes of thorn and fern 
Their leaves from the breadth of the night-air 

turn; 
And half with twining foliage cover 
The mouth of that shadowy cavern over : — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 167 

Above it, the rock rests orloomy and high 
Its rugged' outline against the sky, 
Which seems, as it opens on either hand, 
Like some bright sea leaving a desolate land. 

Below it, a stream on 'its bed of stone 

From a rift in the rock comes hurrying down, 

Telling forever the same wild tale 

Of its loftier home to the lowly vale ; 

And over its waters an oak is bending, 

Its boughs like a skeleton's arms extending — 

A naked tree, by the lightning shorn, 

With its trunk all bare and its branches torn; 

And the rocks beneath it, blacken 'd and rent. 

Tell where the bolt of the thunder went. 

'Tis said that this cave is an evil place — 
The chosen haunt of the fallen race ; 
That the midnight traveler oft hath seen 
A red flame tremble its jaws between. 
And lighten and quiver the boughs among. 
Like the fiery play of a serpent's tongue; 
That sounds of fear from its chambers swell — 
The ghostly gibber, the fiendish yell ; 
That bodiless hands at its entrance wave, — 
And hence they have named it The Demon's 
Cave! 



168 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

The fears of man to this place have lent 
A terror which Nature never meant; 
For who hath wander 'd, with curious eye, 
This dim and shadowy cavern by, 
And known, in the sun or starlight, aught 
Which might not beseem so lonely a spot, — 
The stealthy fox, and the shy raccoon, 
The night-bird's wing in the shining moon, 
The frogs low croak, and, upon the hill, 
The steady chant of the whip-poor-will? 

Yet is there something to fancy dear 

In this silent cave and its lingering fear, — 

Something which tells of another age. 

Of the wizard's wand, and the Sibyl's page. 

Of the fairy ring and the haunted glen, 

And the restless phantoms of m^urder'd men, 

The grandame's tale and the nurse's song. 

The dreams of childhood remember'd long; 

And I love even now to list the tale 

Of the Demon's Cave, and its haunted vale. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 169 



THE FRATRICIDE. 

In the recently published "History of Wyoming" — a 
valley rendered classic ground by the poetry of Camp- 
bell — in an account of the attack of Brandt and Butler 
on the settlements in 1778, a fearful circumstance is 
mentioned. A tory, who had joined the Indians and 
British, discovered his own brother, while pursuing the 
Americans, and, deaf to his entreaties, deliberately pre- 
sented his rifle and shot him dead on the spot The 
murderer fled to Canada. 

He stood on the brow of the well-known hill, 
Its few gray oaks moan'd over him still — 
The last of that forest which cast the gloom 
Of its shadow at eve o'er his childhood's home; 
And the beautiful valley beneath him lay 
With its quivering leaves, and its stream at 

play. 
And the sunshine over it all the while 
Like the golden shower of the Eastern isle. 

He knew the rock with its fingering vine, 
And its gray top touch'd by the slant sunshine, 
And the delicate stream which crept beneath 
Soft as the flow of an infant's breath ; 



170 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

And the flowers which lean'd to the V7est 

wind's sigh, 
Kissing each ripple which glided by ; 
And he knew every valley and wooded swell, 
For the visions of childhood are treasured well. 

Why shook the old man as his eyes glanced 

down 
That narrow ravine where the rude cliffs frown, 
With their shaggy brows and their teeth of 

stone, 
And their grim shade back from the sunlight 

thrown? 
What saw he there save the dreary glen, 
Where the shy fox crept from the eye of men, 
And the great owl sat in the leafy limb 
That the hateful sun might not look on him? 

Fix'd, glassy, and strange was that old man's 

eye, 
As if a spectre were stealing by, 
And glared it still on that narrow dell 
Where thicker and browner the twilight fell ; 
Yet at every sign of the fitful wind, 
Or stirring of leaves in the wood behind, 
His wild glance wander 'd the landscape o'er, 
Then fixed on that desolate dell once more. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 171 

Oh, who shall tell of the thought which ran 
Through the dizzied brain of that gray old man? 
His childhood's home — and his father's toil — 
And his sister's kiss — and his mother's smile — 
And his brother's laughter and gamesome 

mirth, 
At the village school and the winter hearth — 
The beautiful thoughts of his early time, 
Ere his heart grew dark with its later crime. 

And darker and wilder his visions came 
Of the deadly feud and the midnight flame, 
Of the Indian's knife with its slaughter red, 
Of the ghastly forms of the scalpless dead. 
Of his own fierce deeds in that fearful hour 
When the terrible Brandt was forth in power. — 
And he clasp'd his hands o'er his burning eye 
To shadow the vision which glided by. 

It came with the rush of the battle-storm — 
With a brother's shaken and kneeling form, 
And his prayer for life when a brother's arm 
Was lifted above him for mortal harm, 
And the fiendish curse, and the groan of death. 
And the welling of blood, and the gurgling 

breath, 
And the scalp torn off while each nerve could 

feel 
The wrenching hand and the jagged steel ! 



172 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

And the old man groan 'd — for he saw, again. 
The mangled corse of his kinsman slain, 
As it lay where his hand had hnrl'd it then, 
At the shadow'd foot of that fearful glen! — 
And it rose erect, with the death-pang grim, 
And pointed its bloodied finger at him! — 
And his heart grew cold — and the curse of Cain 
Burn'd like a fire in the old man's brain. 

Oh, had he not seen that spectre rise 
On the blue of the cold Canadian skies? — 
From the lakes which sleep in the ancient wood. 
It had risen to whisper its tale of blood, 
And follow 'd his bark to the sombre shore. 
And glared by night through the wigwam door ; 
And here — on his own familiar hill — 
It rose on his haunted vision still ! 

Whose corse was that which the morrow's sun. 
Through the opening boughs, look'd calmly on? 
There were those who bent o'er that rigid face 
Who well in its darken 'd lines might trace 
The features of him who, a traitor, fled 
From a brother whose blood himself had shed. 
And there — on the spot where he strangely 

died — 
They made the grave of the Fratricide ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 173 



SUICIDE POND. 

*Tis a dark and dismal little pool, and fed by 

tiny rills, 
And bosom'd m waveless quietude between 

two barren hills ; 
There is no tree on its rugged marge, save a 

willow old and lone, 
Like a solitary mourner for its sylvan sisters 



The plough of the farmer turneth not the 

sward of its gloomy shore, 
Which bears even now the same gray moss 

which in other times it bore ; 
And seldom or never the tread of man is heard 

in that lonely spot, 
For with all the dwellers around that pool its 

story is unforgot. 

And why does the traveler turn aside from that 

dark and silent pool, 
Though the sun be burning above his head and 

the willow's shade be cool? 



174 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Or glance with fear to its shadowy brink, when 
, night rests darkly there, 
And down, through its sullen and evil depths 
the stars of the midnight glare? 

Merrily whistles the cow-boy on — but he hushes 

his music when 
He hurries his cows, with a sidelong glance 

from that cold, forsaken glen! 
Laughing and mirthful the young girl comes, 

with her gamesome mates, from school. 
But her laugh is lost and her lip is white as she 

passes the haunted pool ! 

'Tis said that a young, a beautiful girl, with a 

brow and with an eye, — 
One like a cloud in the moonlight robed, and 

one like a star on high! — 
One who was loved by the villagers all, and 

whose smile was a gift to them, 
Was found one morn in that pool as cold as the 

water-lily's stem! 

Ay, cold as the rank and wasting weeds, which 

lie in the pool's dark bed, 
The villagers found that beautiful one, in the 

slumber of the dead. 
She had strangely whisper'd her dark design in 

a young companion's ear, 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 175 

But so wild and vague that the listener smiled, 
and knew not what to fear. 

And she went to die in that loathsome pool 

when the summer day was done, 
With her dark hair curl'd on her pure white 

form and her fairest garments on ; 
With the ring on her taper finger still, and her 

necklace of ocean pearl, 
Twined as in mockery round the neck of that 

suicidal girl. 

And why she perish 'd so strangely there no 
mortal tongue can tell — 

She told her story to none, and Death retains 
her secret well ! 

And the willow, whose mossy and aged boughs 
o^er the silent water lean, 

I^ike a sad and sorrowful mourner of the beauti- 
ful dead, is seen ! 

But oft, our village maidens say, when the 

summer evenings fall, 
When the frog is calling from his pool to the 

cricket in the wall ; 
When the night-hawk's wing dips lightly down 

to that dull and sleeping lake, 
And slow through its green and stagnant mass 

the shoreward circles break — 



176 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

At a time like this, a misty form — as long 

beneath the moon — 
Like a meteor glides to the startled view, and 

vanishes as soon; 
Yet weareth it ever a human shape, and ever 

a human cry 
Comes faintly and low on the still night-air, as 

when the despairing die ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 177 



THE FOUNTAIN. 

On the declivity of a hill, in Salisbury, Essex County, 
is a beautiful fountain of clear water, gushing out from 
the very roots of a majestic and venerable oak. It is 
about two miles from the junction of the Powwow River 
with the Merrimac. 

Traveler! on thy journey toiling 

By the swift Powwow, 
With the summer sunshine falling 

On thy heated brow, 
Listen, while all else is still, 

To the brooklet from the hill. 

Wild and sweet the flowers are blowing 

By that streamlet's side, 
And a greener verdure showing 

Where its waters glide — 
Down the hill-slope murmuring on, 

Over root and mossy stone. 

Where yon oak his broad arms fiingetli 

O'er the sloping hill. 
Beautiful and freshly springeth 

That soft-flowing rill, 

12 



178 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Through its dark roots wreath 'd and bare, 
Gushing up to sun and air. 

Brighter waters sparkled never 

In that magic well, 
Of whose gift of life forever 

Ancient legends tell, — 
In the lonely desert wasted, 

And by mortal lip untasted. 

Waters which the proud Castilian* 

Sought with longing eyes. 
Underneath the bright pavilion 

Of the Indian skies ; 
Where upon his forest way 

Bloomed the flowers of Florida. 

Years ago a lonely stranger, 

With the dusky brow 
Of the outcast forest-ranger, 

Cross'd the swift Powwow; 
And betook him to the rill. 
And the oak upon the hill. 

O'er his face of moody sadness 

For an instant shone 
Something like a gleam of gladness, 

* De Soto, in the sixteenth century, penetrated into the wilds 
of the new world in search of gold and the fountain of perpetual 
youth. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 179 

As he stoop 'd him down 
To the fountain's grassy side 
And his eager thirst supplied. 

With the oak its shadow throwing 

O'er its mossy seat, 
And the cool, sweet waters flowing 

Softly at his feet, 
Closely by the fountain's rim 
That lone Indian seated him. 

Autumn's earliest frost had given 

To the woods below 
Hues of beauty, such as Heaven 

Lendeth to its bow ; 
And the soft breeze from the West 
Scarcely broke their dreamy rest. 

Far behind was Ocean striving 

With his chains of sand ; 
Southward sunny glimpses giving, 

'Twixt the swells of land. 
Of its calm and silvery track. 
RoU'd the tranquil Merrimack. 

Over village, wood and meadow, 

Gazed that stranger man 
Sadly, till the twilight shadow 



180 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Over all things ran, 
Save where spire and Westward pane 
Flashed the sunset back again. 

Gazing thus upon the dwelling 

Of his warrior sires, 
Where no lingering trace was telling 

Of their wigwam fires, 
Who the gloomy thoughts might know 
Of that wandering child of woe? 

Naked lay, in sunshine glowing, 

Hills that once had stood 
Down their sides the shadows throwing 

Of a mighty wood, 
Where the deer his covert kept, 
And the eagle's pinion swept! 

Where the birch canoe had glided 

Down the sv/ift Powwow, 
Dark and gloomy bridges strided 

Those clear waters now ; 
And where once the beaver swam, 
Jar'd the wheel and frowned the dam. 

For the wood-birds' merry singing, 

And the hunter's cheer. 
Iron clang and hammer's ringing 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 181 

Smote upon his ear; 
And the thick and sullen smoke 
From the blackened forges broke. 

Could it be, his fathers ever 

Loved to linger here? 
These bare hills — this conquer'd river — 

Could they hold them dear, 
With their native loveliness 
Tamed and tortured into this? 

Sadly, as the shades of even 

Gather 'd o'er the hill. 
While the western half of Heaven 

Blushed with sunset still, 
Prom the fountain's mossy seat 
Turned the Indian's weary feet. 

Year on year hath flown for ever, 

But he came no more 
To the hill-side of the liver 

Where he came before. 
But the villager can tell 
Of that strange man's visit well. 

And the merry children, laden 
With their fruits or flowers — 



182 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Roving boy and laughing maiden, 

In their school-day hours, 
Love the simple tale to tell 
Of the Indian and his well. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 183 



PENTUCKET. 

The village of Haverhill, on the Merrimac, called by 
the Indians Pentucket, was for nearly seventy years a 
frontier town, and during thirty years endured all the 
horrors of savage warfare. In the year 1708, a com- 
bined body of French and Indians, under the command 
of De Challions, and Hertel de Rouville, the infamous 
and bloody sacker of Deerfield, made an attack upon the 
village, which at that time contained only thirty houses. 
Sixteen of the villagers were massacred, and a still 
larger number made prisoners. About thirty of the 
enemy also fell, and among them Hertel de Rouville. 
The minister of the place, Benjamin Rolfe, was killed 
by a shot through his own door. 

How sweetly on the wood-girt town 

The mellow light of sunset shone ! 

Each small, bright lake, whose waters still 

Mirror the forest and the hill, 

Reflected from its waveless breast 

The beauty of a cloudless West, 

Glorious as if a glimpse were given 

Within the western gates of Heaven, 

Left, by the spirit of the star 

Of sunset's holy hour, ajar! 

Beside the river's tranquil flood 



184 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

The dark and low- wall' d dwellings stood, 
Where many a rood of open land 
Stretch'd up and down on either hand, 
With corn-leaves waving freshly green 
The thick and blacken'd stumps between; 
The wild, untravel'd forest spread, 
Behind, unbroken, deep and dread, 
Back to those mountains, white and cold, 
Of which the Indian trapper told, 
Upon whose summits never yet 
Was mortal foot in safety set. 

Quiet and calm, without a fear 
Of danger darkly lurking near, 
The weary laborer left his plough — 
The milk-maid carol'd by her cow — 
From cottage door and household hearth 
Rose songs of praise, or tones of mirth. 
At length the murmur died away. 
And silence on that village lay — 
So slept Pompeii, tower and hall. 
Ere the quick earthquake swallow 'd all, 
Undreaming of the fiery fate 
Which made its dwellings desolate ! 

Hours pass'd away. By moonlight sped 
The Merrimac along his bed. 
Bathed in the pallid lustre, stood 
Dark cottage- wall and rock and wood. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 185 

Silent, beneath that tranquil beam, 
As the hnsh'd grouping of a dream. 
Yet on the still air crept a sound — 
No bark of fox — no rabbit's bound — 
No stir of wings — nor waters flowing — 
Nor leaves in midnight breezes blowing. 

Was that the tread of many feet, 

Which downward from the hill-side beat? 

What forms were those which darkly stood 

Just on the margin of the wood? — 

Charr'd tree-stumps in the moonlight dim, 

Or paling rude, or leafless limb? 

No — through the trees fierce eyeballs glow'd 

Dark human forms in moonshine show'd. 

Wild from their native wilderness, 

With painted limbs and battle-dress! 

A yell, the dead might wake to hear, 
Swell'd on the night air, far and clear — 
Then smote the Indian tomahawk 
On crashing door and shattering lock — 
Then rang the rifle-shot — and then 
The shrill death-scream of stricken men- 
Sunk the red axe in woman's brain. 
And childhood's cry arose in vain — 
Bursting through roof and window came, 
Red, fast and fierce, the kindled flame ; 



186 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

And blended fire and moonlight glared 
Over dead corse and weapons bared. 

The morning sun look'd brightly througl. 
The river willows, wet with dew. 
No sound of combat fill'd the air, — 
No shout was heard, — nor gunshot there: 
Yet still the thick and sullen smoke 
From smouldering ruins slowly broke ; 
And on the greensward many a stain. 
And, here and there, the mangled slain, 
Told how that midnight bold had sped, 
Pentucket, on thy fated head ! 

Even now, the villager can tell 
Where Rolfe beside his hearth-stone fell, 
Still show the door of wasting oak 
Through which the fatal death- shot broke, 
And point the curious stranger where 
De Rouville's corse lay grim and bare — 
Whose hideous head, in death still fear'd, 
Bore not a trace of hair or beard — 
And still, within the churchyard ground, 
Heaves darkly up the ancient mound. 
Beneath whose grass-grown surface lies 
Victims of that sacrifice. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 187 



THE MISSIONARY. 

"It is an awful, an arduous thing to root out every 
affection for earthly things, so as to live only for another 
world. lam now far, very far, from you all; and as 
often as I look around and see the Indian scenery, I sigh 
to think of the distance which separates us. ' ' — Letters 
of Henry Martyn, from India. 

*'Say, whose is this fair picture, which the light 
From the unshutter' d window rests upon 
Even as a lingering halo? — Beautiful! 
The keen, fine eye of manhood, and a lip 
Lovely as that of Hylas, and impress'd 
With the bright signet of some brilliant 

thought — 
That broad expanse of forehead, clear and 

high, 
Mark'd visibly with the characters of mind. 
And the free locks around it, raven black. 
Luxuriant and unsilver'd — who was he?" 

A friend, a more than brother. In the spring 
And glory of his being he went forth 
From the embraces of devoted friends, 
From ease and quiet happiness, from more—-- 



188 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

From the warm heart that loved him with a 

love 
Holier than earthly passion, and to whom 
The beauty of his spirit shone above 
The charms of perishing nature. He went forth 
Strengthen'd to suffer — gifted to subdue 
The night of human passion — to pass on 
Quietly to the sacrifice of all 
The lofty hopes of boyhood, and to turn 
The high ambition written on that brow, 
From its first dream of power and human 

frame, 
Unto a task of seeming lowliness — 
Yet God-like in its purpose. He went forth 
To bind the broken-spirit — to pluck back 
The heathen from the wheel of Juggernaut — 
To place the spiritual image of a God 
Holy and just and true, before the eye 
Of the dark-minded Brahmin — and unseal 
The holy pages of the Book of Life, 
Fraught with sublimer mysteries than all 
The sacred tomes of Vedas — to unbind 
The widow from her sacrifice — and save 
The perishing infant from the worship'd river! 
*'And, lady, where is he?" He slumbers well 
Beneath the shadow of an Indian palm, 
There is no stone above his grave. The wind, 
Hot from the desert, as it stirs the. leaves 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 189 

Of neighboring bananas, sighs alone 
Over his place of slumber. 

"God forbid 
That he should die alone!" — Nay, not alone. 
His God was with him in that last dread hour — 
His great arm underneath him, and His smile 
Melting into a spirit full of peace. 
And one kind friend, a human friend, was 

near — 
One whom his teachings, and his earnest 

prayers 
Had snatch'd as from the burning. He alone 
Felt the last pressure of his failing hand, 
Caught the last glimpses of his closing eye. 
And laid the green turf over him with tears, 
And left him with his God. 

"And was it well, 
Dear lady, that this noble mind should cast 
Its rich gifts on the waters? — That a heart 
Full of all gentleness and truth and love 
Should wither on the suicidal shrine 
Of a mistaken duty? If I read 
Aright the fine intelligence which fills 
That amplitude of brow, and gazes out 
Like an indwelling spirit from that eye, 
He might have borne him loftily among 
The proudest of his land, and with a step 



190 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Unfaltering ever, steadfast and secure, 
Gone up the paths of greatness, — bearing still 
A sister spirit with him, as some star, 
Pre-eminent in Heaven, leads steadily up 
A kindred watcher, with its fainter beams 
Baptized in its great glory. Was it well 
That all this promise of the heart and mind 
Should perish from the earth, and leave no 

trace, 
Unfolding like the Cereus of the clime 
Which hath its sepulchre, but in the night 
Of pagan desolation — was it well?" 

Thy will be done, O Father ! — it was well. 
What are the honors of a perishing world 
Grasp 'd by a palsied finger? — the applause 
Of the unthoughtful multitude which greets 
The dull ear of decay? — the wealth that loads 
The bier with costly drapery, and shines 
In tinsel on the coffin, and builds up 
The cold substantial monument? Can these 
Bear up the sinking spirit in that hour 
When heart and flesh are failing, and the grave 
Is opening under us? Oh, dearer then 
The memory of a kind deed done to him 
Who was our enemy, one grateful tear 
In the meek eye of virtuous suffering, 
One smile call'd up by unseen charity 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 191 

On the wan cheek of hunger, or one prayer 
Breathed from the bosom of the penitent — 
The stain'd with crime and outcast, unto whom 
Our mild rebuke and tenderness of love. 
A merciful God hath bless 'd. 

"But, lady, say 
Did he not sometimes almost sink beneath 
The burden of his toil, and turn aside 
To weep above his sacrifice, and cast 
A sorrowing glance upon his childhood's 

home — 
Still green in memory? Clung not to his heart 
Something of early hope uncrucified. 
Of earthly thought unchasten'd? Did he bring 
Life's warm affections to the sacrifice — 
Its loves, hopes, sorrows — and become as one 
Knowing no kindred but a perishing world, 
No love but of the sin-endangered soul. 
No hope but of the winning back to life 
Of the dead nations, and no passing thought 
Save of the errand wherewith he was sent 
As to a martyrdom?" 

Nay, though the heart 
Be consecrated to the holiest work 
Vouchsafed to mortal effort, there will be 
Ties of the earth around it, and through all 



192 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Its perilous devotion, it must keep 
Its own humanity. And it is well. 
Else why wept He, who with our nature veil'd 
The spirit of a God, o'er lost Jerusalem, 
And the cold grave of Lazarus? And why 
In the dim garden rose His earnest prayer, 
That from His lips the cup of suffering 
Might pass, if it were possible? 

My friend 
Was of a gentle nature, and his heart 
Gush'd like a river-fountain of the hills, 
Ceaseless and lavish, at a kindly smile, 
A word of welcome, or a tone of love. 
Freely his letters to his friends disclosed 
His yearnings for the quiet haunts of home — 
For love and its companionship, and all 
The blessings left behind him ; yet above 
Its sorrows and its clouds his spirit rose. 
Tearful and yet triumphant, taking hold 
Of the eternal promises of God, 
And steadfast in its faith. Here are some 

lines 
Penned in his lonely mission-house, and sent 
To a dear friend of his who even now 
Lingers above them with a mournful joy. 
Holding them well-nigh sacred —as a leaf 
Plucked from the record of a breaking heart. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 193 

AN EVENING IN BURMAH. 

A night of wonder ! — piled afar 
With ebon feet and crests of snow, 

Like Himalayah's peaks, which bar 

The sunset and the sunset's star 
From half the shadow'd vale below, 

Volumed and vast the dense clouds lie, 

And over them, and down the sky. 
Broadly and pale the lightnings go. 



Above, the pleasant moon is seen. 

Pale journeyer to her own loved West ! 
Like some bright spirits sent between 
The earth and heaven, she seems to lean 

Wearily on the cloud and rest ; 
And light from her unsullied brow 
That gloomy cloud is gathering now 

Along each wreath 'd and whitening crest. 

And what a strength of light and shade 

Is chequering all the earth below ! — 
And, through the jungle's verdant braid 
Of tangled vine and wild reed made, 

What blossoms in the moonlight glow ! — 
The Indian rose's loveliness. 
The ceiba with its crimson dress, 
The myrtle with its bloom of snow. 



13 



194 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

And flitting in the fragrant air, 

Or nestling in the shadowy trees, 
A thousand bright-hned birds are there — 
Strange plumage quivering, wild and rare, 

With every faintly-breathing breeze ; 
And, wet with dew from roses shed, 
The Bulbul droops her weary head, 
Forgetful of her melodies. 

Uprising from the orange leaves 
The tall pagoda's turrets glow; 
O'er graceful shaft and fretted eaves 
Its verdant web the myrtle weaves, 

And hangs in flowering wreaths below ; 
And where the cluster'd palms eclipse 
The moonbeams, from its marble lips 
The fountain's silver waters flow. 

Yes, all is lovely — earth and air — 
As aught beneath the sky may be; 

And yet my thoughts are wandering where 

My native rocks lie bleak and bare — 
A weary way beyond the sea. 

The yearning spirit is not here ; 

It lingers on a spot more dear 

Than India's brightest bowers to me. 

Methinks I tread the well-known street — 
The tree my childhood loved is there. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 195 

Its bare- worn roots are at my feet, 
And through its open boughs I meet 

White glimpses of the place of prayer — 
And unforgotten eyes again 
Are glancing through the cottage pane, 

Than Asia's lustrous eyes more fair. 

What though, with every fitful gush 
Of night- wind, spicy odors come ; 

And hues of beauty glow and flush 

From matted vine and wild rose-bush; 
And music's sweetest, faintest hum 

Steals through the moonlight, as in dreams,—- 

Afar from all my spirit seems 
Amid the dearer scenes of home ' 

A holy name — the name of home ' 

Yet where, O wandering heart, is thine? 

Here where the dusky heathen come 

To bow before the deaf and dumb — 
Dead idols of their own design, 

Where deep in Ganges' worship 'd tide 

The infant sinks — and on its side 
The widow's funeral altars shine' 

Here, where 'mid light and song and flowers 

The priceless soul in ruin lies — 
Lost — dead to all those better powers 
Which link a fallen world like ours 



196 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

To God's own holy Paradise; 
Where open sin and hideous crime 
Are like the foliage of their clime — 

The unshorn growth of centuries ' 

Turn, then, my heart — thy home is here ; 

No other now remains for thee : — 
The smile of love, and friendship's tear, 
The tones that melted on thine ear, 

The mutual thrill of sympathy, 
The welcome of the household band, 
The pressure of the lip and hand, 

Thou may' St not hear, nor feel, nor see. 

God of my Spirit ! — Thou alone, 

Who watchest o'er my pillowed head, 
Whose ear is open to the moan 
And sorrowing of Thy child, hast known 
The grief which at my heart has fed, — 
The struggle of my soul to rise 
Above its earth-born sympathies, — 
The tears of many a sleepless bed! 

Oh, be Thine arm, as it hath been, 

In every test of heart and faith, — 
The Tempter's doubt — the wiles of men — 
The heathen's scoff — the bosom sin — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 197 

A helper and a stay beneath, 
A strength in weakness 'mid the strife 
And anguish of my wasting life — 

My solace and my hope in death ! 



19i WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



STANZAS, 
SuggcE.cl by ::ie letter o; a friend- 

I see thee still before —e. even 

As when we parted. 
When o'er my blue eyes brilliant heaven 

A tear had started ; — 
And a slight tremor in thy tone. 
Like that of some frail hatp-string blown 

By fitful breezes, faint and low, 
Told, in that brief and sad farewell, 
All that affection's heart may tell. 

And more than words can show! 

Yet, thou art with the dreamless dead 

Qnietly sleeping, 
Around the marble at thy head 

The wild grass creeping ! — 
How many thoughts, which but belong 
Unto the living and the young, 

Have whisper "d from my heart of thee. 
When thou wast resting calmly there, 
Shut from the blessed sun and air — 

From life and love and me I 



i 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 190 

Why did I leave thee? — Well, I knew 

A flower so frail 
Might sink beneath the Summer dew, 

Or soft vSpring gale : 
I knew how delicately wrought, 
With feeling and intensest thought. 

Was each sweet lineament of thine ; — 
And that thy heavenward soul would gain 
An early freedom from its chain, 

Was there not many a sign? 

There was a brightness in thine eye, 

Yet not of mirth — 
A light whose clear intensity 

Was not of earth ! 
Along thy cheek a deepening red 
Told where the feverish hectic fed, 

And, yet, each fearful token gave 
A newer and a dearer grace 
To the mild beauty of thy face, 

Which spoke not of the grave ! 

Why did I leave thee? — Far away 

They told of lands 
Glittering with gold, and none to stay 

The gleaner's hands. 
For this I left thee — ay, and sold 
The riches of my heart for gold! 



200 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

For yonder mansion's vanity — 
For green verandas, hung with flowers, 
For marbled fount and orange bowers, 

And grove and flowering tree. 

Vain — worthless, all ! The lowliest spot 

Enjoy 'd with thee, 
A richer and a dearer lot 

Would seem to me : 
For well I knew that thou couldst find 
Contentment in thy spotless mind 

And in my own unchanging love. 
Why did I leave thee? — Fully mine 
The blessing of a heart like thine, 

What could I ask above? 

Mine is a selfish misery — 

I cannot weep 
For one supremely blest, like thee. 

With Heaven's sleep ; 
The passion and the strife of time 
Can never reach that sinless clime. 

Where the redeem 'd of spirit dwell! — 
Why should I weep that thou art free 
From all the grief which maddens me? — 

Sainted and loved — Farewell ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 201 



LINES ON A PORTRAIT. 

Ho w beautiful ! — That brow of snow, 

That glossy fall of fair brown tresses, 
The blue eye's tranquil heaven below, 

The hand whereon the fair cheek presses, 
Half- shadow 'd by a falling curl 

Which on the temple's light reposes — 
Each finger like a line of pearl 

Contrasted with the cheek's pure roses! 
There, as she sits beneath the shade 
By vine and rose-wreath' d arbor made, 
Tempering the light which, soft and warm, 
Reveals her full and matchless form, 
In thoughtful quietude, she seems 
Like one of Raphael's pictur'd dreams. 
Where blend in one all radiant face 
The woman's warmth — the angel's grace! 

Well — I can gaze upon it now. 

As on some cloud of autumn's even, 

Bathing its pinions in the glow 
And glory of the sunset heaven — 

So holy and so far away 

That love without desire is cherish'd, 



202 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Like that which lingers o'er the clay 

Whose warm and breathing life has perish 'd 
While yet upon its brow is shed 
The mournful beauty of the dead ! 
And I can look on her as one 
Too pure for aught save gazing on — 
An idol in some holy place, 
Which man may kneel to, not caress — 
Or melting tone of music heard 
From viewless lip, or unseen bird. 

I know her not. And what is all 

Her beauty to a heart like mine, 
While memory yet hath power to call 

Its worship from a stranger- shrine? 
Still 'midst the weary din of life 

The tones I love my ear has met ; 
Midst lips of scorn and brows of strife 

The smiles I love are lingering yet ! 
The hearts in sun and shadow known — 
The kind hands lingering in our own — 
The cords of strong affection spun 
By early deeds of kindness done — 
The blessed sympathies whicn bind 
The spirit to its kindred mind, — 
Oh, who would leave these tokens tried 
For all the stranger- world beside? 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 2G3 



STANZAS. 

"Art thou beautiful? — Live then in accordance with 
the curious make and frame of thy creation ; and let the 
beauty of thy person teach thee to beautify thy mind 
with holiness, the ornament of the beloved of God." — 
William Penn, 

Bind up thy tresses, thou beautiful one, 
Of brown in the shadow and gold in the sun ! 
Free should their delicate lustre be thrown 
O'er a forehead more pure than the Parian 

stone — 
Shaming the light of those Orient pearls 
Which bind o'er its whiteness thy soft wreath- 
ing curls. 

Smile — for thy glance on the mirror is thrown. 
And the face of an angel is meeting thine own ! 
Beautiful creature — I marvel not 
That thy cheek a lovelier tint hath caught ; 
And the kindling light of thine eye hath told 
Of a dearer wealth than the miser's gold. 

Away, away — there is danger here— 
A terrible phantom is bending near; 



204 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Ghastly and sunken, his rayless eye 

Scowls on thy loveliness scornfully — 

With no human look — with no human breath, 

He stands beside thee, — the haunter, Death. 

Fly ! but, alas, he will follow still. 
Like a moonlight shadow, beyond thy will ; 
In thy noon-day walk — in thy midnight sleep. 
Close at thy hand will that phantom keep — 
Still in thine ear shall his whispers be — 
Wo, that such phantom should follow thee ! 

In the lighted hall where the dancers go. 

Like beautiful spirits, to and fro; 

When thy fair arms glance in their stainless 

white. 
Like ivory bathed in still moonlight; 
And not one star in the holy sky 
Hath a clearer light than thine own blue eye ! 

Oh, then — even then — he will follow thee. 
As the ripple follows the bark at sea ; 
In the soften'd light — in the turning dance — 
He will fix on thine his dead, cold glance — 
The chill of his breath on thy cheek shall lin- 
ger. 
And thy warm blood shrink from his icy finger. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 205 

And yet there is hope. Embrace it now, 
While thy soul is open as thy brow ; 
While thy heart is fresh — while its feelings still 
Gush clear as the unsoil'd mountain -rill — 
And thy smiles are free as the airs of spring, 
Greeting and blessing each breathing thing. 

When the after cares of thy life shall come, 
When the bud shall wither before its bloom ; 
When thy soul is sick of the emptiness 
And changeful fashion of human bliss; 
And the weary torpor of blighted -^eeling 
Over thy heart as ice is stealing — 

Then, when thy spirit is turn'd above, 
By the mild rebuke of the Chastener's love; 
When the hope of that joy in thy heart is stirr'd, 
Which eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard, — 
Then will that phantom of darkness be 
Gladness and Promise, and Bliss to thee. 



206 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



TO THE MEMORY OF J. O. ROCK- 
WELL. 

The turf is smooth above him ! and this rain 
Will moisten the rent roots, and summon back 
The perishing- life of its green-bladed grass, 
And the crush 'd flower will lift its head again 
Smilingly unto Heaven, as if it kept 
No vigil with the dead. 

Well— it is meet 
That the green grass should tremble, and the 

flowers 
Blow wild about his resting-place. His mind 
Was in itself a flower, but half-disclosed — 
A bud of blessed promise, which the storm 
Visited rudely, and the passer-by 
Smote down in wantonness. — But we may trust 
That it hath found a dwelling, where the sun 
Of a more holy clime will visit it, 
And the pure dews of mercy will descend. 
Through Heaven's own atmosphere, upon its 

head. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 207 

His form is now before me, with no trace 
Of death in its fine lineaments, and there 
Is a faint crimson on his youthful cheek, 
And his free lip is softening with the smile 
Which in his eye is kindling. I can feel 
The parting pressure of his hand, and hear 
His last "God bless you!" — strange — that he is 

there 
Distinct before me like a breathing thing, 
Even when I know that he is with the dead, 
And that the damp earth hides him. I would not 
Think of him otherwise — his image lives 
Within my memory as he seem'd before 
The curse of blighted feeling, and the toil 
And fever of an uncongenial strife, had left 
Their traces on his aspect. 

Peace to him. 
He wrestled nobly with the weariness 
And trials of our being — smiling on. 
While poison mingled with his springs of life, 
And wearing a calm brow, while on his heart 
Anguish was resting like a hand of fire — 
Until at last the agony of thought 
Grew insupportable, and madness came 
Darkly upon him, — and the sufferer died! 

Nor died he unlamented ! To his grave 
The beautiful and gifted shall go up, 



208 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

And muse upon the sleeper. And young lips 

Shall murmur in the broken tones of grief — 

His own sweet melodies — and if the ear 

Of the freed spirit heedeth aught beneath 

The brightness of its new inheritance, 

It may be joyful to the parted one 

To feel that earth remembers him in love ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 209 



THE UNQUIET SLEEPER. 

The Hunter went forth with his dog and gun, 
In the earliest glow of the golden sun ; — 
The trees of the forest bend over his way, 
In the changeful colors of Autumn gay; 
For a frost had fallen the night before, 
On the quiet greenness which Nature wore. 

A bitter frost ! — for the night was chill. 
And starry and dark, and the wind was still, 
And so when the sun looked out on the hills, 
On the stricken woods and the frosted rills. 
The unvaried green of the landscape fled. 
And a wild, rich robe was given instead. 

We know not whither the Hunter went, 

Or how the last of his days was spent ; 

For the moon grew nigh — but he came not 

back, 
Weary and faint from his forest track; 
And his wife sat down to her frugal board, 
Beside the empty seat of her lord. 

And the day passed on, and the sun came down 
To the hills of the west, like an angel's crown, 

14 



210 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

The shadows lengthened from wood and hill, 
The mist crept up from the meadow-rill, 
Till the broad sun sank, and the red light rolled 
All over the west, like a wave of gold! 

Yet he came not back — though the stars gave 

forth 
Their wizard light to the silent Earth ; 
And his wife looked out from the lattice dim 
In the earnest manner of fear for him; 
And his fair-haired child on the door-stone 

stood 
To welcome his father back from the wood! 

He came not back ! — yet they found him soon, 
In the burning light of the morrow's noon, 
In the fixed and visionless sleep of death, 
Where the red leaves fell at the soft wind's 

breath ; 
And the dog, whose step in the chase was fleet, 
Crouched silent and sad at the Hunter's feet. 

He slept in death ; — but his sleep was one 
Which his neighbors shuddered to look upon, 
For his brow was black, and his open eye 
Was red with the sign of agony; 
Ard they thought, as they gazed on his features 

grim. 
That an evil deed had been done on him. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 211 

They buried him where his fathers laid, 
By the mossy mounds in the grave-yard shade, 
Yet whispers of doubt passed over the dead, 
And beldames muttered while prayers were 

said; 
And the hand of the sexton shook as he pressed 
The damp earth down on the Hunter's breast. 

The seasons passed — and the Autumn rain 
And the colored forests returned again ; 
'Twas the very eve that the Hunter died, 
The winds wail'd over the bare hill-side. 
And the wreathing limbs of the forest shook 
Their red leaves over the swollen brook. 

There came a sound on the night-air then. 
Like a spirit-shriek, to the homes of men. 
And louder and shriller it rose again. 
Like the fearful cry of the mad with pain ; 
And trembled alike the timid and brave, 
For they knew that it came from the Hunter's 
grave! 

And every year when Autumn flings 
Its beautiful robe on created things. 
When Piscataqua's tide is turbid with rain v 
And Cocheco's woods are yellow again. 
That cry is heard from the grave-yard earth, 
Like the howl of a demon struggling forth ! 



212 WHITTIZr. S r^ OEMS. 



METACOM. 

Red as the banner which enshrouds 

The warrior-dead when strife is done, 
A broken mass of crimson clonds 

Htmg over the departed sun. 
The shadow of the western h'M 
Crept swiftly down, and iir!::.y still, 
A5if aB-:tn-.". :f-ght 
TVere -:=r.:"r :n :. r ^i.e twilight. 
Tie :::r::-:-:rn:n^E rre "ore dim. 



■' £i 



=; r, 



through 



'?' 



rii.;::-^ "in- i. ':r: n i.n:, iue^v wing- 
?:n:-ns :na: :.n :nr miinlri^ inn. 
But fold t'nem a: :::r rising sim! 
JBeneath the closing veil of night. 

And leafy bough and curling fog. 
TTith his few warriors ranged in sight — 
Scarred relics of his latest fight — 

Rested the fiery Wampanoag. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 213 

He leaned upon his loaded gun, 

Warmed with its recent work of death, 

And, save the struggling of his breath 

That, slow and hard, and long-suppressed. 

Shook the damp folds around his breast, 

An eye, that was unused to scan 

The sterner moods of that dark man. 

Had deemed his tall and silent form 

With hidden passion fierce and warm. 

With that fixed eye, as still and dark 

As clouds which veil their lightning spark 

That of some forest-champion 

Whom sudden death has passed upon — 

A giant frozen into stone. 

Son of the throned Sachem, — thou, 

The sternest of the forest kings, — 
Shall the scorned pale-one trample now, 
Unambushed, on thy mountain's brow — 
Yea, drive his vile and hated plough 

Among thy nation's holy things. 
Crushing the warrior-skeleton 
In scorn beneath his armed heel. 
And not a hand be left to deal 
A kindred vengeance fiercely back. 
And cross in blood the Spoiler's track? 
He started, — for a sudden shot 
Came booming through the forest trees — 
The thunder of the fierce Yengeese : 



214 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

It passed away, and injured not ; 
But, to the Sachem's brow it brought 
The token of his lion thought. 
He stood erect — his dark eye burned, 
As if to meteor-brightness turned ; 
And o'er his forehead passed the frown 
Of an archangel stricken down, 
Ruined and lost, yet chainless still — 
Weakened of power, but strong of will! 
It passed — a sudden tremor came 
Like ague o'er his giant frame, — 
It was not terror — he had stood 

For hours, with death in grim attendance, 
When moccasins grew stiff with blood, 

And through the clearing's midnight flame, 
Dark, as a storm, the Pequod came. 

His red right arm their strong dependence — - 
When thrilling through the forest gloom 
The onset cry of "Metacom!" 

Rang on the red and smoky air ! — 
No — it was agony which passed 
Upon his soul — the strong man's last 

And fearful struggle with despair. 
He turned him to his trustiest one — 
The old and war- tried Annawon — 
** Brother" — The favored warrior stood 
In hushed and listening attitude — 
''This night the Vision- Spirit hath 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 215 

Unrolled the scroll of fate before me 
And ere the sunrise cometh, Death 

Will wave his dusky pinion o'er me! 
Nay, start not — well I know thy faith : 
Thy weapon now may keep its sheath, 
But when the bodeful morning breaks. 
And the green forest widely wakes 

Unto the roar of Yengeese thunder, 
Then, trusted brother, be it thine 
To burst upon the foeman's line 
And rend his serried strength asunder. 
Perchance thyself and yet a few 
Of faithful ones may struggle through. 
And, rallying on the wooded plain. 
Offer up in Yengeese blood 
An offering to the Indian's God." 

Another shot — a sharp, quick yell. 

And then the stifled groan of pain 
Told that another red man fell, — 

And blazed a sudden light again 
Across that kingly brow and eye. 
Like lightning on a cloudy sky, — 
And a low growl, like that which thrills 
The hunter of the Eastern hills. 

Burst through clenched teeth and rigid lip — 
And when the Monarch spoke again, 
His deep voice shook beneath its rein, 

And wrath and grief held fellowship. 



216 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

"Brother! meth ought when as but now 

I pondered on my nation's wrong 
With sadness on his shadowy brow 

My father's spirit passed along! 
He pointed to the far southwest, 

Where sunset's gold was growing dim, 

And seemed to beckon me to him, 
And to the forests of the blest!— 
My father loved the Yengeese, when 
They were but children, shelterless. 
For his great spirit at distress 
Melted to woman's tenderness — 

Nor was it given him to know 
That children whom he cherished then 
Would rise at length, like armed men, 

To work his people's overthrow. 
Yet thus it is ; — the God before 

Whose awful shrine the pale ones bow 
Hath frowned upon and given o'er 

The red man to the stranger now ! — 
A few more moons, and there will be 
No gathering to the council-tree ; 
The scorched earth, the blackened log, 

The naked bones of warriors slain, 

Be the sole relics which remain 
Of the once mighty Wampanoag! 
The forests of our hunting-land. 

With all their old and solemn green, 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 217 

Will bow before the Spoiler's axe, 

The plough displace the hunter's tracks, 

And the tall Yengeese altar stand 

Where the Great Spirit's shrine hath been. 

**Yet, brother, from this awful hour 

The dying curse of Metacom 
Shall linger with abiding power, 
Shall pour a darker tide than rain — 
The sea shall catch its blood-red stain, 
And broadly on its banks shall gleam 

The steel of those who should be brothers — 
Yea, those who once fond parent nursed 
Shall meet in strife, like fiends accursed, 
And trample down the once loved form. 

Upon the spoilers of my home. 

The fearful veil of things to come 

B)^ Kitchtan's hand is lifted from 
The shadows of the embryo years ; 

And I can see more clearly through 
Than ever visioned Powwow did. 
For all the future comes unbid 

Yet welcome to my tranced view, 
As battle-yell to warrior's ears! 
From stream and lake and hunting-hill 

Our tribes may vanish like a dream. 

And even my dark curse may seem 
Like idle winds when Heaven is still — 



218 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

No bodeful harbinger of ill, 

But fiercer than the downright thunder 

When yawns the mountain-rock asunder, 

And riven pine and knotted oak 

Are reeling to the fearful stroke. 

That curse shall work its master's will ! 
The bed of yon blue mountain stream 
While yet with breathing passion warm, 

As fiercely as they would another's!" 

The morning star sat dimly on 
The lighted eastern horizon — 
The deadly glare of leveled gun 

Came streaking through the twilight haze, 

And naked to its reddest blaze 
A hundred warriors sprang in view ; 

One dark red arm was tossed on high. 
One giant shout came hoarsely through 

The clangor and the charging cry. 
Just across the scattering gloom, 
Red as the naked hand of Doom, 

The Yengeese volley hurtled by — 
The arm — the voice of Metacon ! — 

One piercing shriek — one vengeful yell 
Sent like an arrow to the sky, 

Told when the hunter-monarch fell! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 219 



THE MURDERED LADY. 

A dark-hulled brig at anchor rides 

Within the still and moonlit bay, 
And round its black, portentous sides 

The waves like living creatures play! 
And close at hand a tall ship lies, 

A voyager from the Spanish main, 
Laden with gold and merchandise — 

She'll ne'er return again! 

The fisher in his seaward skiff 

Creeps stealthily along the shore 
Within the shadow of the cliff, 

Where keel had never ploughed before 
He turns him from that stranger bark 

And hurries down the silvery bay, 
Where like a demon still and dark. 

She watches o'er her prey. 

4: % « ^ 4: 

The midnight came. — A dash of oars 
Broke on the ocean-stillness then, 

And swept toward the rocky shores 

The fierce wild forms of outlawed men : 



220 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

The tenants of this fearful ship 

Grouped strangely in the pale moonlight- 
Dark, iron brow and bearded lip, 

Ghastly with storm and fight. 

They reach the shore, — but who is she, 

The white-robed one they bear along? 
She shrieks — she struggles to be free — 

God shield that gentle one from wrong! 
It may not be, — those pirate men 

Along the hushed, deserted street 
Have borne her to a narrow glen 

Scarce trod by human feet. 

* * * * * 

And there the ruffians murdered her, 

When not an eye, save Heaven's, beheld,- 
Ask of the shuddering villager 

What sounds upon the night air swelled. 
Woman's long shriek of mortal fear — 

Her wild appeal to hearts of stone, 
The oath — the taunt— the brutal jeer — 

The pistol-shot — the groan ! 

With shout and jest and losel song. 

From savage tongues which knew no rein, 

The stained with murder pacsed along 
And sought their ocean-home again; 

And all the night their revel came 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 221 

In hoarse and sullen murmurs on, — 
A yell rang up — a burst of flame — 
The Spanish ship was gone ! 

The morning light came red and fast 

Along the still and blushing sea; 
The phantoms of the night had passed- 

That ocean-robber — where was she? 
Her sails were reaching from the wind, 

Her crimson banner-folds were stirred 
And ever and anon behind 

Her shouting crew were heard. 

Then came the village-dwellers forth 

And sought with fear the fatal glen ; 
The stain of blood — the trampled earth — 

Told where the deed of death had been. 
They found a grave — a new-made one — 

With bloody sabres hollowed out, 
And shadowed from the searching sun 

By tall trees round about. 

They left the hapless stranger there ; 

They knew her sleep would be as well 
As if the priest had poured his prayer 

Above her, with the funeral-bell. 
The few poor rites which man can pay 

And felt not by the lonely sleeper ; 



222 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

The deaf, unconscious ear of clay- 
Heeds not the living weeper. 

They tell a tale — those sea-worn men 

Who dwell along that rocky coast — 
Of sights and sounds within the glen, 

Of midnight shriek and gliding ghost. 
And oh ! if ever from their chill 

And dreamless sleep the dead arise, 
That victim of unhallowed ill 

Might wake to human eyes! . 

They say that often when the morn 

Is struggling with the gloomy even, 
And over moon and stars is drawn 

The curtain of a clouded heaven, 
Strange sounds swell up the narrow glen 

As if that robber-crew was there — 
The hellish laugh — the shouts of men — 

And woman's dying prayer! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 223 



THE WEIRD GATHERING. 

A trumpet in the darkness blown — 

A peal upon the air — 
The church-yard answers to its tone 
With boding shriek and wail and groan — 

The dead are gliding there ! 

It rose upon the still midnight, 
A summons long and clear — 
The wakeful shuddered with affright — 
The dreaming sleeper sprang upright 
And pressed his stunning ear. 

The Indian, where his serpent eye 

Beneath the greenwood shone 
Startled, and tossed his arms on high, 
And answered, with his own wild cry, 
The sky's unearthly tone. 

The wild birds rose in startled flocks 

As the long trumpet swelled; 
And loudly from their old, gray rocks 
The gaunt, fierce wolf and caverned fox 
In mutual terror yelled. 



224 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

There is a wild and haunted glen 

'Twixt Saugus and Naumkeag — 
'Tis said of old that wizard-men 
And demons to that spot have been 
To consecrate their league. 

A fitting place for such as these 

That small and sterile plain, 
So girt about with tall old trees 
Which rock and groan in every breeze, 

Like spirits cursed with pain. 

It was the witch's try sting-place, 

The wizard's chosen ground, 
Where the accursed of human race 
With demons gathered, face to face. 

By the midnight trumpet's sound. 

And there that night the trumpet rang 

And rock and hill replied. 
And down the glen strange shadows sprang, 
Mortal and fiend— a wizard gang — 

Seen dimly side by side. 

They gathered there from every land 

That sleepeth in the sun, — 
They came with spell and charm in hand, 
Waiting their Master's high command — 

Slaves to the Evil One! 




The song of war has died away. " — Page 261. 



Whittiei's Poems. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 225 

From islands of the far-off seas — 

From Hecla's ice and flame — 
From where the loud and savage breeze 
Growls through the tall Norwegian trees 

Seer, witch, and wizard came! 

And from the sunny land of palms 

The negro hag was there — 
The Gree-gree, with his Obi charms — 
The Indian, with his tattooed arms 

And wild and streaming hair. 

The Gypsy, with her fierce, dark eyes, 

The worshiper of flame — 
The searcher out of mysteries 
Above a human sacrifice — 

All — all — together came ! 

***** 

Nay, look not down that lighted dell 

Thou startled traveler! — 
Thy Christian eye should never dwell 
On gaunt, gray witch and fiend of hell 

And evil Trumpeter! 

But the traveler turned him from his way, 

For he heard the reveling, 
And saw the red light's wizard ray 
Among the dark-leafed branches play, 

Like an unholy thing. 

15 



226 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

He knelt him on the rocks and cast 

A fearful glance beneath ; 
Wizard and hag before him passed, 
Each wilder, fiercer than the last, — 

His heart grew cold as death ! 

He saw the dark-browed Trumpeter — 

In human shape was he ; 
And witch and fiend and sorcerer, 
With shriek and laugh and curses, were 

Assembled at his knee. 

And lo ! beneath his straining glance 

A light form stole along — 
Free, as if moving to the dance, 
He saw her fairy steps advance 

Toward the evil throng. 

The light along her forehead played — 

A wan, unearthly glare ; 
Her cheek was pale beneath the shade 
The wildness of her tresses made, 

Yet nought of fear was there ! 

Now God have mercy on thy brain. 

Thou stricken traveler ! 
Look on thy victim once again. 
Bethink thee of her wrongs and pain — 

Dost thou remember her? 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 227 

The traveler smote his burning brow, — 
For he saw the wronged one there — 

He knew her by her forehead's snov7, 

And by her large blue eye below, 
And by her wild, dark hair. 

Slowly, yet firm, she held her way, — 

The wizard's song grew still — 
The sorcerer left his elfish play, 
And hideous imp and beldame gray 

Waited the stranger's will. 

A voice came up that place of fear — 

The Trumpeter's hoarse tone : 
"Speak — who art thou that comest here 
With brow baptized and Christian ear, 

Unsummoned and alone?" 

One moment, and a tremor shook 

Her light and graceful frame, — 
It passed, and then her features took 
A fiercer and a haughtier look 

As thus her answer came : — 

** Spirits of evil — 

Workers of doom ! — 
Lo ! to your revel 

For vengeance I come — 
Vengeance on him 



528 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Who has blighted my fame! 
Fill his cup to the brim 

With a curse without name ! 
Let his false heart inherit 

The madness of mine, 
And I yield ye my spirit 

And bow at your shrine!" 

A sound — a mingled laugh and yell, 

Went howling fierce and far ; 
A redder light shone through the dell. 
As if the very gates of hell 

Swung suddenly ajar. 

"Breathe then thy curse, thou daring one, 

A low, deep voice replied : 
*'Whate'er thou askest shall be done, 
The burthen of thy doom upon 

The false one shall abide. ' * 

The maiden stood erect — her brow 

Grew dark as those around her. 
As burned upon her lip that vow 
Which Christian ear may never know, — 
And the dark fetter bound her! 

Ay, there she stood — the holy Heaven 

Was looking down on her — 
An Angel from her bright home driven — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 229 

A Spirit lost and doomed and given 
To fiend and sorcerer I 

And changed — how changed ! — her aspect grew 

Fearful and elfish there ; 
The warm tinge from her cheek withdrew 
And one dark spot of blood-red hue 

Burned on her forehead fair. 

Wild from her eye of madness shone 

The baleful fire within, 
As with a shrill and lifted tone 
She made her fearful purpose known 

Before the powers of sin : — 

"Let my curse be upon him — 

The faithless of heart! 
Let the smiles that have won him 

In frowning depart! 
Let his last cherished blossom 

Of sympathy die, 
And the hopes of his bosom 

In shadows go by! 
Ay, curse him — but keep 

The poor boon of his breath 
Till he sigh for the sleep 

And the quiet of death ! 
Let a viewless one haunt him 



230 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

With whisper and jeer, 
And an evil one daunt him 

With phantoms of fear ! 
Be the fiend unforgiving 

That follows his tread ! 
Let him walk with the living, 

Yet gaze on the dead!" 

She ceased. The doomed one felt the spell 

Already on his brain ; 
He turned him from the wizard-dell ; 
He prayed to Heaven ; he cursed at Hell ; — 

He wept — and all in vain. 

The night was one of mortal fear ; 

The morning rose to him 
Dark as the shroudings of a bier, 
As if the blessed atmosphere, 

Like his own soul, was dim. 

He passed among his fellow-men 

With wild and dreamy air. 
For, whispering in his ear again 
The horrors of the midnight glen, 

The demon found him there. 

And when he would have knelt and prayed 

Amidst his household band. 
An unseen power his spirit stayed 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 231 

And on his moving lip was laid 
A hot and burning hand ! 

The lost one in the solitude 

Of dreams he gazed upon, 
And when the holy morning glowed 
Her dark eye shone, her wild hair flowed 

Between him and the sun! 

His brain grew wild, — and then he died ; 

Yet, ere his heart grew cold, 
To the gray priest who at his side 
The strength of prayer and blessing tried, 

His fearful tale was told. 

4c ^ ^ 4: 4c 

They've bound the witch with many a thong — 

The holy priest is near her; 
And ever as she moves along, 
A murmur rises fierce and strong 

From those who hate and fear her. 

She's standing up for sacrifice 

Beneath the gallows-tree ; 
The silent town beneath her lies, 
Above her are the summer skies, 

Far off the quiet sea. 

So young — so frail — so very fair — 
Why should the victim die? 



232 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Look on her brow I — the red stain there 
Burns underneath her tangled hair — 
And mark her fiery eye ! 

A thousand eyes are looking up 

In scorn and hate to her ; 
A bony hand hath coiled the rope, 
And yawns upon the green hill's slope 

The witch's sepulchre! 

Ha ! she hath spurned both priest and book- 

Her hand is tossed on high — 
Her curse is loud, she will not brook 
The impatient crowd's abiding look — 

Hark! how she shrieks to die! 

Up — up — one struggle — all is done! 

One groan — the deed is wrought! 
Wo for the wronged and fallen one ! 
Her corpse is blackened in the sun, 

Her spirit — trace it :^ot ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 23S 



THE BLACK FOX. 

It was a cold and cruel night, 
Some fourscore years ago, 

The clouds across the winter sky- 
Were scudding to and fro ; 

The air above was cold and keen, 
The earth was white below. 

Around an ancient fireplace 

A happy household drew ; 
The husband and his own goodwife, 

And children not a few ; 
And bent above the spinning-wheel 

The aged grandame too. 

The firelight reddened all the room, 

It rose so high and strong, 
And mirth was in each pleasant eye 

Within that household throng ; 
And while the grandame turned her wheel 

The good man hummed a song. 

At length spoke up a fair-haired girl. 
Some seven summers old. 



234 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

*'Now, grandame, tell the tale again 

Which yesterday you told ; 
About the Black Fox and the men 

Who followed him so bold. ' ' 

"Yes, tell it," said a dark-eyed boy, 
And "Tell it," said his brother; 

"Just tell the story of the Fox, 
We will not ask another. ' ' 

And all the children gathered close 
Around their old grandmother. 

Then lightly in her withered hands 
The grandame turned her reel. 

And when the thread was wound away 
She set aside her wheel. 

And smiled with that peculiar joy 
The old and happy feel. 

" 'Tis more than sixty years ago 
Since first the Fox was seen — 

'Twas in the winter of the year. 
When not a leaf was green. 

Save where the dark old hemlock stood 
The naked oaks between. 

"My father saw the creature first, 

One bitter winter's day — 
It passed so near that he could see 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 235 

Its fiery eyeballs play, 
And well he knew an evil thing, 
And foul, had crossed his way. 

"A hunter like my father then 

We never more shall see — 
The mountain cat was not more swift 

Of eye and foot than he : 
His aim was fatal in the air 

And on the tallest tree. 

"Yet close beneath his ready aim 

The Black Fox hurried on, 
And when the forest echoes mocked 

The sharp voice of his gun, 
The creature gave a frightful yell. 

Long, loud, but only one. 

'*And there was something horrible 

And fiendish in that yell ; 
Our good old parson heard it once, 

And I have heard him tell 
That it might well be likened to 

A fearful cry from hell. 

*'Day after day that Fox was seen. 
He prowled our forests through, 

Still gliding wild and spectre-like 
Before the hunter's view; 



236 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

And howling louder than the storm 
When savagely it blew. 

"The Indians, when upon the wind 
That howl rose long and clear, 

Shook their wild heads mysteriously 
And muttered, as in fear; 

Or veiled their eyes, as if they knew 
An evil thing was near. 

*'They said it was a Fox accurst 

By Hobomocko's will. 
That it was once a mighty chief 

Whom battle might not kill. 
But who, for some unspoken crime. 

Was doomed to wander still. 

*'That every year, when all the hills 
Were white with winter snow, 

And the tide of Salmon River ran 
The gathering ice below. 

His howl was heard and his form was seen 
Still hurrying to and fro. 

*'At length two gallant hunter youths, 

The boast and pride of all — 
The gayest in the hour of mirth, 

The first at danger's call. 
Our playmates at the village school, 

Our partners at the ball — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 237 

"Went forth to hunt the Sable Fox 

Beside that haunted stream, 
Where it so long had glided like 

The creature of a dream, 
Or like unearthly forms that dance 

Under the cold moonbeam ! 

"They went away one winter day, 

When all the air was white, 
And thick and hazed with falling snow, 

And blinding to the sight ; 
They bade us never fear for them, 

They would return by night. 

"The night fell thick and darkly down, 

And still the storm blew on ; 
And yet the hunters came not back. 

Their task was yet undone ; 
Nor came they with their words of cheer. 

Even with the morrow's sun. 

"And then our old men shook their heads. 

And the red Indians told 
Their tales of evil sorcery 

Until our blood ran cold, — 
The stories of their Powwow seers 

And withered hags of old. 

"They told us that our hunters, 
Would never more return — 



238 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

That they would hunt forevermore 
Through tangled swamp and fern,. 

And that their last and dismal fate 
No mortal e'er might learn. 

"And days and weeks passed slowly on 
And yet they came not back^ 

Nor evermore by stream or hill 
Was seen that form of black — 

Alas! for those who hunted still 
Within its fearful track ! 

"But when the winter passed away,. 

And early flowers began 
To bloom along the sunned hill-side, 

And where the waters ran, 
There came unto my father's door 

A melancholy man. 

"His form had not the sign oi years, 
And yet his locks were white. 

And in his deep and restless eye 
There was a fearful light ; 

And from its glance we turned away 
As from an adder's sight. 

"We placed our food before that man, 

So haggard and so wild, — 
He thrust it from his lips as he 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 239 

Had T^een a fretful child ; 
And when we spoke with words of cheer 
Most bitterly he smiled. 

"^'He smiled, and then a gush of tears, 

And then a fierce, wild look. 
And then he murmured of the Fox 

Which haunted Salmon Brook, 
Until his hearers every one 

With nameless terror shook. 

** 'He turned away with a frightful cry, 

And hurried madly on, 
As if the dark and spectral thing 

Before his path had gone : 
We called him back, but he heeded not 

The kind and warning tone. 

"'He came not back to us again. 

But the Indian hunters said 
That far, where the howling wilderness 

Its leafy tribute shed, — 
They found our missing hunters — 

Naked and cold and dead. 

"Their grave they made beneath the shade 

Of the old and solemn wood, 
Where oaks by Time alone hewn down 

For centuries had stood. 



240 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

And left them without shroud or prayer 
In the dark solitude. 

"The Indians always shun that grave, — 
The wild deer treads not there — 

The green grass is not trampled down 
By catamount or bear — 

The soaring wild-bird turns away 
Even in the upper air. 

"For people said that every year, 
When winter snows are spread 

All over the face of the frozen earth, 
And the forest leaves are shed. 

The Spectre Fox comes forth and howls 
Above the hunters' bed." 



i 



i 



W-HITTIER'S POEMS. 241 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 

Gray searcher of the tipper air ! 

There's sunshine on thy ancient walls— 
A crown upon the forehead bare — 

A flashing on thy water-falls — 
A rainbow glory in the cloud, 
Upon thy awful summit bowed, 

Dim relic of the recent storm ! 
And music, from the leafy shroud 
Which wraps in green thy giant form, 
Mellowed and softened from above. 

Steals down upon the listening ear, 
Sweet as the maiden's dream of love. 

With soft tones melting on her ear. 

The time has been, gray mountain, when 

Thy shadows veiled the red man's home; 
And over crag and serpent den. 
And wild gorge, where the steps of men 

In chase or battle might not come, 
The mountain eagle bore on high 

The emblem of the free of soul ; 
And midway in the fearful sky 
Sent back the Indian's battle-cry, 

Or answered to the thunder's roll. 

16 



■^42 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

The wigwam fires have all burned out — 

The moccasin hath left no track — 
Kor wolf nor wild-deer roam about 

The Saco or the Merrimack. 
And thou that liftest up on high 
Thine awful barriers to the sky, 

Art not the haunted mount of old, 
When on each crag of blasted stone 
Some mountain- spirit found a throne, 

And shrieked from out the thick cloud-fold. 
And answered to the Thunderer's cry 
When rolled the cloud of tempest by, 
And jutting rock and riven branch 
Went down before the avalanche. 

The Father of our people then 

Upon thy awful summit trod. 
And the red dwellers of the glen 

Bowed down before the Indian's God. 
There, when His shadow veiled the sky. 

The Thunderer's voice was long and loud 
And the red flashes of His eye 

Were pictured on the o'erhanging cloud. 

The spirit moveth there no more, 

The dwellers of the hill have gone, 
The sacred groves are trampled o'er. 
And footprints mar the altar-stone. 
. The white man climbs thy tallest rock 



WHITTIER'S POEMS, 243 

And hangs him from the mossy steep, 
Where, trembling to the cloud-fire's shock. 
Thy ancient prison- walls unlock. 
And captive waters leap to light, 
And dancing down from height to height. 

Pass onward to the far-off deep. 

Oh, sacred to the Indian seer. 

Gray altar of the days of old ! 
Still are thy rugged features dear. 
As when unto my infant ear 

The legends of the past were told. 
Tales of the downward sweeping flood, 
When bowed like reeds thy ancient wood, — 

Of armed hand and spectral form. 
Of giants in their misty shroud. 
And voices calling long and loud 

In the drear pauses of the storm ! 

Farewell! The red man's face is turned 

Toward another hunting-ground ; 
For where the council-fire has burned, 

And o'er the sleeping warrior's mound 
Another fire is kindled now : 
Its light is on the white man's brow! 

The hunter race have passed away — 
Ay, vanished like the morning mist. 
Or dew-drops by the sunshine kissed, — 

And wherefore should the red man stay? 



244 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



THE INDIAN'S TALE. 

The War-God did not wake the strife 

The strong men of our forest land. 
No red hand grasped the battle-knife 

At Areonski's high command: 
We held no war-dance by the dim 

And red light of the creeping flame ; 
Nor warrior yell, nor battle hymn 

Upon the midnight breezes came. 

There was no portent in the sky, 

No shadow on the round, bright sun. 
With light and mirth and nielody 

The long, fair summer days came on. 
We were a happy people then, 

Rejoicing in our hunter mood; 
No footprints of the pale-faced men 

Had marred our forest solitude. 

The land was ours — this glorious land — 
With all its wealth of wood and streams : 

^•Our warriors strong of heart and hand, 
Our daughters beautiful as dreams. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 245 

When wearied at the thirsty noon, 

We knelt us where the spring gushed up, 

To taste our Father's blessed boon — 
Unlike the white man's poison cup. 

There came unto my father's hut 

A wan, weak creature of distress ; 
The red man's door is never shut 

Against the lone and shelterless. 
And when he knelt before his feet, 

My father led the stranger in ; 
He gave him of his hunter meat — 

Alas ! it was a deadly sin ! 

The stranger's voice was not like ours — 

His face at first was sadly pale, 
Anon 'twas like the yellow flowers 

Which trembled in the meadow gale : 
And when he laid him down- to die. 

And murmured of his fatherland, 
My mother wiped his tearful eye, 

My father held his burning hand! 

He died at last — the funeral yell 
Rang upward from his burial sod, 

And the old Powwah knelt to tell 
The tidings to the white man's God! 

The next day came — my father's brow 
Grew heavy with a fearful pain, 



246 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

He did not take his hunting-bow — 
He never sought the woods again ! 

He died even as the white man died; 

My mother, she was smitten too; 
My sisters vanished from my side, 

Like diamonds from the sunlit dew. 
And then we heard the Powwahs say 

That God had sent his angel forth 
To sweep our ancient tribes away, 

And poison and unpeople Earth. 

And it was so : from day to day 

The Spirit of the Plague went on — 
And those at morning blithe and gay 

Were dying at the set of sun. 
They died — our free, bold hunters died — 

The living might not give them graves, 
Save when along the water-side 

They cast them to the hurrying waves. 

The carrion crow, the ravenous beast. 

Turned loathing from the ghastly dead ; 
Well might they shun the funeral feast 

By that destroying angel spread ! 
One after one the red men fell. 

Our gallant war- tribe passed away, 
And I alone am left to tell 

The story of its swift decay. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 247 

Alone — alone — a withered leaf, 

Yet clinging to its naked bough ; 
The pale race scorn the aged chief, 

And I will join my fathers now. 
The spirits of my people bend 

At midnight from the solemn West, 
To me their kindly arms extend, 

To call me to their home of rest ! 



248 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



THE SPECTRE SHIP. 

The morning light is breaking forth 

All over the dark blue sea, 
And the waves are changed — they are rich 
with gold 

As the morning waves should be, 
And the rising winds wandering out 

On their seaward pinions free. 

The bark is ready, the sails are set. 
And the boat rocks on the shore — 

Say, why do the passengers linger yet? 
Is not the farewell o'er? 

Do those who enter that gallant ship 
Go forth to return no more? 

A wailing rose by the water-side, 

A young, fair girl was there, 
With a face as pale as the face of Death 

When its coffin-lid is bare ; 
And an eye as strangely beautiful 

As a star in the upper air. 

She leaned on a youthful stranger's arm — 
A tall and silent one — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 249 

Who stood in the very midst of the crowd, 

Yet littered a word to none ; 
He gazed on the sea and the waiting ship, 

But he gazed on them alone! 

The fair girl leaned on the stranger's arm, 

And she wept as one in fear, 
But he heeded not the plaintive moan 

And the dropping of the tear ; 
His eye was fixed on the stirring sea, 

Cold, darkly and severe ! 

The boat was filled — the shore was left — 

The farewell word was said — 
But the vast crowd lingered still behind 

With an overpowering dread ; 
They feared that stranger and his bride, 

So pale and like the dead. 

And many said that an evil pair 
Among their friends had gone, — 

A demon with his human prey, 
From the quiet graveyard drawn ; 

And a prayer was heard that the innocent 
Might escape, the Evil One. 

Away — the good ship sped away, 

Out on the broad high seas, 
The sun upon her path before — 



250 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Behind, the steady breeze — 
And there was nought in sea or sky 
Of fearful auguries. 

The day passed on — the sunlight fell 

All slantwise from the west, 
And then the heavy cloud of storm 

Sat on the ocean's breast; 
And every swelling billow mourn 'd 

Like a living thing distressed. 

The sun went down among the clouds. 

Tinging with sudden gold 
The pall-like shadow of the storm. 

On every mighty fold — 
And then the lightning's eye look'd forth, 

And the red thunder rolled. 

The storm came down upon the sea. 

In its surpassing dread, 
Rousing the white and broken surge 

Above its rocky bed, 
As if the deep was stirred beneath 

A giant's viewless tread. 

All night the hurricane went on, 

And all along the shore 
The smothered cry of shipwreck 'd men 

Blent with the ocean's roar; 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 251 

The gray-haired man had scarcely known 
So wild a night before. 

Morn rose upon the tossing sea, 

The tempest's work was done 
And freely over land and wave 

Shone out the blessed sun ; 
But where was she — that merchant bark — 

Where had the good ship gone? 

Men gathered on the shore to watch 

The billows' heavy swell, 
Hoping, yet fearing much, some frail 

Memorial might tell 
The fate of that disastrous ship — 

Of friends they loved so well. 

None came — the billows smoothed away. 

And all was strangely calm. 
As if the very sea had felt 

A necromancer's charm; 
And not a trace was left behind 

Of violence and harm. 

The twilight came with sky of gold, 

And curtaining of night — 
And then a sudden cry rang out, 

*'A ship — the ship in sight!" 



252 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

And lo! tall masts grew visible 
Within the fading light. 

Near and more near the ship came on, 

With all her broad sails spread — 
The night grew thick, but a phantom light 

Around her path was shed. 
And the gazers shuddered as on she came 

For against the wind she sped. 

« 
They saw by the dim and baleful glare 

Around that voyager thrown. 
The upright forms of the well-known crew. 

As pale and fixed as stone ; 
And they called to them, but no sound came 
back 

Save the echoed cry alone. 

The fearful stranger youth was there 

And clasped in his embrace 
The pale and passing sorrowful 

Gazed wildly in his face, 
Like one who had been wakened from 

The silent burial-place. 

A shudder ran along the crowd. 

And a holy man knelt there. 
On the wet sea-sand, and offered up 

A faint and trembling prayer. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 263 

That God would shield His people from 
The spirits of the air! 

And lo ! the vision passed away — 

The spectre ship — the crew — 
The stranger and his pallid bride, 

Departed from their view ; 
And nought was left upon the waves 

Beneath the arching blue. 

It passed away, that vision strange, 

Forever from their sight, 
Yet long shall Naumkeag's annals tell 

The story of that night — 
The phantom bark — the ghostly crew — 

The pale, encircling light. 



254 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



THE SPECTRE WARRIORS. 

"Away to your arms ! for the foemen are here^ 
The yell of the red man is loud on the ear ! 
On — on to the garrison — soldiers away. 
The moccasin's track shall be bloody to-day.'" 

The fortress is reached, they have taken their 

stand. 
With war-knife in girdle, and rifle in hand ; — 
Their wives are behind them, the savage 

before — 
Will the Puritan fail at his hearth-stone and 

door? 

There's a yell in the forest, unearthly and 

dread, 
Like the shriek of a fiend o'er the place of the 

dead; 
Again — how it swells through the forest afar — 
Have the tribes of the fallen uprisen to war? 

Ha — look! they are coming — not cautious and 

slow, 
In the serpent-like mood of the blood-seeking 

foe. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 255 

Nor stealing in shadow, nor hiding in grass, 
But tall and uprightly and sternly they pass. 

*'Be ready!" — the watchword has passed on 

the wall — 
The maidens have shrunk to the innermost 

hall— 
The rifles are leveled — each head is bowed 

low — 
Each eye fixes steady — God pity the foe ! 

They are closely at hand! Ha! the red flash 

has broke 
From the garrisoned wall through a curtain of 

smoke, 
There's a yell from the dying — that aiming 

was true — 
The red man no more shall his hunting pursue ! 

Look, look to the earth, as the smoke rolls 

away. 
Do the dying and dead on the green herbage 

lay? 
What mean those wild glances? no slaughter 

is there — 
The red man has gone like the mist on the air! 

Unharmed as the bodiless air he has gone 
From the war-knife's edge and the ranger's 
long gun, 



256 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



* 



And the Puritan warrior has turned him away 
From the weapons of war, and is kneeling to 
pray ! 

He fears that the Evil and Dark One is near, 
On an errand of wrath, with his phantoms of 

fear; 
And he knows that the aim of his rifle is vain — 
That the spectres of evil may never be slain ! 

He knows that the Powwah has cunning and 

skill 
To call up the Spirit of Darkness at will ; 
To waken the dead in their wilderness- graves, 
And summons the demons of forest and waves. 

And he layeth the weapons of battle aside, 
And forgetteth the strength of his natural 

pride, 
And he kneels with the priest by his garrisoned 

door. 
That the spectres of evil may haunt him no 

more ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 257 



THE LAST NORRIDGEWOCK. 

She stood beneath the shadow of an oak, 
Grim with uncounted winters, and whose 

boughs 
Had sheltered in their youth the giant forms 
Of the great chieftain's warriors. She was 

fair, 
Even to a white man's vision — and she wore 
A blended grace and dignity of mien 
Which might befit the daughter of a king — 
The queenliness of nature. She had all 
The magic of proportion which might haunt 
The dream of some rare painter, or steal in 
Upon the musings of the sanctuary 
Like an unreal vision. She was dark, — 
There was no play of crimson on her cheek, 
Yet were her features beautiful. Her eye 
Was clear and wild — and brilliant as a beam 
Of the live sunshine ; and her long, dark hair 
Sway'd in rich masses to the unquiet wind. 
The West was glad with sunset Over all 
The green hills and the wilderness there fell 
A great and sudden glory. Half the sky 



258 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Was full of glorious tints, as if the home 
And fountain of the rainbow were revealed ; 
And through its depth of beauty looked the star 
Of the blest Evening, like an angel's eye. 

The Indian watched the sunset, and her eye 
Glistened one moment; then a tear fell down. 
For she was dreaming of her fallen race — 
The mighty who had perished — for her creed 
Had taught her that the spirits of the brave 
And beautiful were gathered in the West — 
The red man's Paradise; — and then she sang 
Faintly her song of sorrow, with a low 
And half -hushed tone, as if she knew that those 
Who listened were unearthly auditors, 
And that the dead had bowed themselves to 
hear. 

*'The moons of autumn wax and wane, the 
sound of swelling floods 

Is borne upon the mournful wind, and broadly 
on the woods 

The colors of the changing leaves — the fair, 
frail flowers of frost ; 

Before the round and yellow sun most beautiful 
are tossed. 

The morning breaketh with a clear, bright pen- 
ciling of sky, 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 259 

And blushes through its golden clouds as the 
great sun goes by ; 

And evening lingers in the West — more beau- 
tiful than dreams 

Which whisper of the Spirit-land, its wilder- 
ness and streams! 

A little time — another moon — the forest will 
be sad — 

The streams will mourn the pleasant light 
which made their journey glad ; 

The morn will faintly lighten up, the sunlight 
glisten cold. 

And wane into the western sky without its 
autumn gold. 

"And yet I weep not for the sign of desolation 

near — 
The ruin of my hunter race may only ask a 

tear, — 
The wailing streams will laugh again, the 

naked trees put on 
The beauty of their summer green beneath the 

summer sun; 
The autumn cloud will yet again its crimson 

draperies fold, 
The star of sunset smile again — a diamond set 

in gold! 



260 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

But never for their forest lake, or for their 
mountain path, 

The mighty of our race shall leave the hunt- 
ing-ground of Death. 

**I know the tale my fathers told — the legend 

of their fame — 
The glory of our spotless race before the pale 

ones came — 
When asking fellowship of none, by turns the 

foe of all, 
The deathbolts of our vengeance fell, as Hea- 
ven's own lightnings fall; 
When at the call of Tacomet, my warrior-sire 

of old, 
The war-shout of a thousand men upon the 

midnight rolled; 
And fearless and companionless our warriors 

strode alone. 
And from the big lake to the sea the green 

earth was their own. 

*.* Where are they now? Around their changed 
and stranger-peopled home. 

Full sadly o'er their thousand graves the flow- 
ers of autumn bloom — 

The bow of strength is buried with the calumet 
and spear. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 261 

And the spent arrow slumbereth, forgetful of 

the deer! 
The last canoe is rotting by the lake it glided 

o'er, 
When dark-eyed maidens sweetly sang its wel- 
come from the shore. 
The footprints of the hunter race from all the 

hills have gone — 
Their offering to the Spirit-land have left the 

altar-stone — 
The ashes of the council-fire have no abiding 

token — 
The song of war has died away — the Powwah's 

charm is broken — 
The startling war-whoop cometh not upon the 

loud, clear air — 
The ancient woods are vanishing — the pale 

men gather there. 

*'And who is left to mourn for this? — a solitary 

one. 
Whose life is waning into death like yonder 

setting sun! 
A broken reed, a faded flower, that lingereth 

behind, 
To mourn above its fallen race, and wrestle 

with the wmd! 



262 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Lo ! from the Spirit-land I hear the voices of 

the blest; 
The holy faces of the loved are leaning from 

the West. 
The mighty and the beautiful — the peerless 

ones of old — 
They call me to their pleasant sky and to their 

thrones of gold ; 
Ere the spoilers' eye hath found me, when 

there are none to save — 
Or the evil-hearted pale-face made the free of 

soul a slave ; 
Ere the step of air grow weary, or the sunny 

eye be dim, 
The father of my people is calling me to him." 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 263 



THE AERIAL OMENS. 

A light is troubling Heaven ! — A strange, dull 

glow 
Is trembling like a fiery veil between 
The blue sky and the earth ; and the far stars 
Glimmer but faintly through it. Day hath left 
No traces of its presence, and the blush 
With which it welcomed the embrace of Night 
Has faded from the sky's blue cheek, as fades 
The blush of human beauty when the tone 
Or look which woke its evidence of love 
Hath passed away forever. Wherefore then 
Burns the strange fire in Heaven? — It is as if 
Nature's last curse — the terrible plague of fire. 
Were working in her elements, and the sky 
Consuming like a vapor. 

Lo — a change ! 
The fiery flashes sink, and all along 
The dim horizon of the fearful North 
Rests a broad crimson, like a sea of blood 
Untroubled by a wave. And lo — above, 
Bendeth a luminous arch of pale, pure white. 
Clearly contrasted with the blue above 



264 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

And the dark red beneath it. Glorious ! 
How like a pathway for the sainted ones — 
The pure and beautiful intelligences 
Who minister in Heaven, and offer up 
Their praises as incense; or, like that which 

rose 
Before the pilgrim-prophet, when the tread 
Of the most holy angels brightened it, 
And in its dream the haunted sleeper saw 
The ascending and descending of the blest ! 

Another change. Strange, fiery forms uprise 
On the wide arch, and take the throngful shape 
Of warriors gathering to the strife on high. — 
A dreadful marching of infernal shapes. 
Beings of fire with plumes of bloody red. 
With banners flapping o'er their crowded ranks, 
And long swords quivering up against the sky! 
And now they meet and mingle ; and the ear 
Listens with painful earnestness to catch 
The ring of cloven helmets and the groan 
Of the down- trodden. But there comes no 

sound 
Save a low, sullen rush upon the air, 
Such as the unseen wings of spirits make, 
Sweeping the void above us. All is still. 
Yet falls each red sword fiercely, and the hoof 
Of the wild steed is crushing on the breast 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 265 

Of the o'er thrown and vanquished. 'Tis a 

strange 
And awful conflict — an unearthly war! 
It is as if the dead had risen up 
To battle with each other — the stern strife 
Of spirits visible to mortal eyes. 

Steed, plume, and warrior vanish one by one, 

Wavering and changing to unshapely flame ; 

And now across the red and fearful sky 

A long bright flame is trembling, like the sword 

Of the great Angel at the guarded gate 

Of Paradise, when all the sacred groves 

And beautiful flowers of Eden-land blushed 

red 
Beneath its awful shadow; and the eye 
Of the lone outcast quailed before its glare, 
As from the immediate questioning of God. 
And men are gazing on that troubled sky 
With most unwonted earnestness, and fair 
And beautiful brows are reddening in the light 
Of that strange vision of the upper air; 
Even as the dwellers of Jerusalem, 
The leaguered of the Roman, when the sky 
Of Palestine was thronged with fiery shapes, 
And from Antonio's tower the mailed Jew 
Saw his own image pictured in the air. 
Contending with the heathen ; and the priest 



266 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Beside the Temple's altar veiled his face 
From that most horrid phantasy, and held 
The censer of his worship with a hand 
Shaken b}?- terror's palsy. 

It has passed — 
And Heaven is quiet; and its stars 
Smile down serenely. There is not a stain 
Upon iits dream-like loveliness of blue — 
No token of the fiery mystery 
Which made the evening fearful. But the 

hearts 
Of those who gazed upon it, yet retained 
The shadow of its awe — the chilling fear 
Of its ill-boding aspect. It is deemed 
A revelation of the things to come — 
Of war and its calamities — the storm 
Of the pitched battle, and the midnight strife 
Of heathen inroad — the devouring flame, 
The dripping tomahawk, the naked knife, 
The swart hand twining with the silken locks 
Of the fair girl — the torture, and the bonds 
Of perilous captivity with those 
Who know not mercy, and with whom revenge 
Is sweeter than the cherished gift of life. 



MOGG MEGONE. 



267 



MOGG MEGONE. 

PART I. 

Who stands on that cliff, like a figure of stone, 
Unmoving and tall in the light of the sky, 
Where the spray of the cataract sparkles on 
high, 
All lonely and sternly, save Mogg Megone? 
How close to the verge of the rock, is he. 

While beneath him the Saco its work is 
doing, 
Hurrying down to its grave, the sea, 

And slow through the rock its pathway 
hewing ! 
Far down, through the mist of the falling 

river, 
Which rises up like an incense ever, 
The splintered points of the crags are seen, 
With the water howling and vexed between, 
While the scooping whirl of the pool beneath 
Seems an open throat, with its granite teeth! 

But Mogg Megone never trembled yet 
Wherever his eye or his foot was set. 
269 



270 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

He is watchful: each form in the moonlight 

dim, 
Of rock or of tree, is seen of him : 
He listens; each sound from afar is caught, 
The faintest shiver of leaf and limb : 
But he sees not the waters, which foam and 

fret 
Whose moonlit spray has his moccasin wet, — 
And the roar of their rushing, he hears it not. 

The moonlight, through the open bough 

Of the gray beech, whose naked root 

Coils like a serpent at his foot, 
Falls, checkered, on the Indian's brow. 
His head is bare, save only where 
Waves in the wind one lock of hair, 

Reserved for him, whoe'er he be 
More mighty than Megone in strife. 

When, breast to breast and knee to knee,. 
Above the fallen warrior's life 
Gleams, quick and keen, the scalping-knife. 
Megone hath his knife and hatchet and gun,. 
And his gaudy and tasseled blanket on : 
His knife hath a handle with gold inlaid, 
And magic words on its polished blade, — 
'Twas the gift of Castine to Mogg Megone,. 
For a scalp or twain from Yengeese torn ; 
His gun was the gift of the Tarrantine, 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 271 

And Modocawando's wives had strung 
The brass and the beads, which tinkle and shine 
On the polished breech, and broad bright line 

Of beaded wampum around it hung. 
What seeks Megone? His foes are near, 

Gray Jocelyn's eye is never sleeping, 
And the garrison lights are burning clear, 

Where Philip's men their watch are keeping. 
Xret him hie him away through the dank river 

fog, 
Never rustling the boughs nor displacing 
the rocks, 
Per the eyes and the ears which are watching 
for Mogg, 
Are keener than those of the wolf or the fox. 

He starts, — there's a rustle among the leaves: 

Another, — the click of his gun is heard I — 
A footstep — is it the step of Cleaves, 

With Indian blood on his English sword? 
Steals Harmon down from the sands of York, 
With hand of iron and foot of cork? 
Has Scamman, versed in Indian wile. 
For vengeance left his vine-hung isle? 
Hark! at that whistle, soft and low. 

How lights the eye of Mogg Megone ! 
A smile gleams o'er his dusky brow, — 

"Boon welcome, Johnny Bonython!" 



272 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Out steps, with cautious foot and slow, 
And quick keen glances to and fro, 
The haunted outlaw, Bonython ! 
A low, lean, swarthy man is he, 
With blanket-garb and buskined knee, 
And nought of English fashion on ; 
For he hates the race from whence he sprung, 
And he couches his words in the Indian tongue. 

^'Hush, — let the Sachem's voice be weak; 

The water-rat shall hear him speak, — 

The owl shall whoop in the white man's ear, 

That Mogg Megone, with his scalps, is here V* 

He pauses, — dark, over cheek and brow, 

A flush, as of shame, is stealing now : 

*' Sachem!" he says, "let me have the land, 

Which stretches away upon either hand 

As far about as my feet can stray 

In the half of a gentle summer's day. 

From the leaping brook to the Saco River, — 
And the fair-haired girl, thou hast sought of me, 
Shall sit in the Sachem's wigwam, and be 
The wife of Mogg Megone forever." 

There's a sudden light in the Indian's glance, 
A moment's trace of powerful feeling, — 

Of love or triumph, or both perchance, 
Over his proud, calm features stealing, 

* ' The words of my father are very good ; 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 273 

He shall have the land, and water, and wood; 
And he who harms the sagamore John, 
Shall feel the knife of Mogg Megone ; 
But the fawn of the Yengeese shall sleep on 

my breast, 
And the bird of the clearing shall sing in my 

nest. ' ' 

"But, father!" — and the Indian's hand 

Falls gently on the white man's arm, 
And, with a smile as shrewdly bland 

As the deep voice is low and calm, — 
"Where is my father's singing-bird, — 

The sunny eye, and sunset hair? 
I know I have my father's word, 

And that his word is good and fair ; 

But will my father tell me where 
Megone shall go and look for his bride? — 
For he sees her not by her father's side." 

The dark, stern eye of Bonython 

Flashes over the features of Mogg Megone, 
In one of those glances which search within ; 

But the stolid calm of the Indian alone 

Remains where the trace of emotion has 
been. 

' * Does the Sachem doubt? Let him go with me, 

And the eyes of the Sachem his bride shall see. " 

18 



274 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Cautious and slow, with pauses oft, 
And watchful eyes and whispers soft, 
The twain are stealing through the wood, 
Leaving the downward-rushing flood, 
Whose deep and solemn roar behind 
Grows fainter on the evening wind. 

Hark — is that the angry howl 

Of the wolf, the hills among? — 
Or the hooting of the owl. 

On his leafy cradle swung? — 
Quickly glancing, to and fro, 
Listening to each sound they go : 
Round the columns of the pine, 

Indistinct, in shadow, seeming 
Like some old and pillared shrine ; 
With the soft and white moonshine. 
Round the foliage-tracery shed 
Of each column's branching head, 

For its lamps of worship gleaming ! 
And the sounds awakened there. 

In the piae-leaves fine and small, 

Soft and sweetly musical. 
By the fingers of the air, 
Por the anthem's dying fall 
Lingering round some temple's wall! 
Is not Nature's worship thus, 

Ceaseless ever, going on? 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 275 

Hath it not a voice for us 

In the thunder, or the tone 
Of the leaf -harp faint and small, 
Speaking to the unsealed ear 
Words of blended love and fear, 
Of the mighty Soul of all? 

* 
Nought had the twain of thoughts like these 
As they wound along through the crowded 

trees, 
Where never had rung the axeman's stroke 
On the gnarled trunk of the rough-barked oak ; 
Climbing the dead tree's mossy log, 

Breaking the mesh of the bramble fine, 
Turning aside the wild grape-vine, 
And lightly crossing the quaking bog 
Whose surface shakes at the leap of the frog. 
And out of whose pools the ghostly fog 
Creeps into the chill moonshine ! 

Yet, even that Indian's ear had heard 
The preaching of the Holy Word : 
Sanchekantacket's isle of sand 
Was once his father's hunting land, 
Where zealous Hiacoomes stood, — 
The wild apostle of the wood, 
Shook from his soul the fear of harm, 
And trampled on the Pawwaw's charm : 



276 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Until the wizard's curses hung 
Suspended on his palsying tongue, 
And the fierce warrior, grim and tall, 
Trembled before the forest Paul ! 

A cottage hidden in the wood, — 

Red through its seams a light is glowing, 
On rock and bough and tree-trunk rude, 

A narrow lustre throwing. 
"Who's there?" a clear, firm voice demands: 

"Hold, Ruth, — 'tis I, the Sagamore!" 
Quick, at the summons, hasty hands 

Unclose the bolted door ; 
And on the outlaw's daughter shine 
The flashes of the kindled pine. 

Tall and erect the maiden stands. 

Like some young priestess of the w^ood, 
Some creature born of Solitude, 
And bearing still the wild and rude. 
Yet noble trace of Nature's hands. 
Her dark-brown cheek has caught its stain 
More from the sunshine than the rain; 
Yet, where her long fair hair is parting, 
A pure white brow into light is starting; 
And, where the folds of her mantle sever, 
Are a neck and bosom as white as ever 
The foam-wreaths rise on the leaping river. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 277 

But, in the convulsive quiver and grip 
Of the muscles around her bloodless lip, 

There is something painful and sad to see ; 
And her eye has a glance more sternly wild 
Than even that of a forest child 

In its fearless and untamed freedom should 
be. 
Oh ! seldom in hall or court are seen 
So queenly a form and so noble a mien, 

As freely and smiling she welcomes them 
there ! 
Her outlawed sire and Mogg Megone: 

"Pray, father, how does thy hunting fare? 

And, Sachem, say, — does Scamman wear, 
In spite of thy promise, a scalp of his own?" 
Careless and light is the maiden's tone; 

But a fearful meaning lurks within 
Her glance, as it questions the eye of 
Megone, — 

An awful meaning of guilt and sin ! — 
The Indian hath opened his blanket, and there 
Hangs a human scalp by its long damp hair ! 

Now God have mercy! — that maiden's fingers 
Are touching the scalp where the blood still 
lingers. 
Turning up to the light its soft brown hair 1 
What an evil triumph her eye reveals! 



278 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

What a baleful smile on her pale face steals! 

Is the soul of a fiend in a form so fair? 
Nay — traces of feeling are visible now, 
In that quivering lip and that writhing brow ! 
But who shall measure the thoughts within, 
Of hatred and love, of passion and sin? 
Does not the eye of her mind glance back 
On the gloom and quiet of her stormy track? 
The traitor's lip by her kisses met — 
The traitor's hand by her fond tears wet — 
The trustless hopes on his promise built — 
The gust of passion — the hell of guilt ! — 
The warm embrace, when her tresses fair 
Mingled themselves with that scalp's brown 

hair — 
And idly and fondly her small hand played 
In dalliance sweet with its light and shade ! 
And what are those tears which her wild eyes 

dim, 
But tears of sorrow and love for him? — 
For him who drugged her cup with shame. 
With a curse for her heart and a blight for her 

name? 
For whom her vengeance hath tracked so long, 
Feeding its torch with the thought of wrong? 

Oh ! woman wronged, can cherish hate 
More deep and dark than manhood may; 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 279 

But, when the mockery of Fate 

Hath left Revenge its chosen way, 
And the fell curse, which years have nursed. 
Full on the spoiler's head hath burst, — 
When all her wrong, and shame, and pain, 
Burns fiercely on his heart and brain, — 
Still lingers something of the spell 

Which bound her to the traitor's bosom, — 
Still, 'midst the vengeful fires of hell, 

Some flowers of old affection blossom. 
And while her hand is nerved to strike, 
She sweeps above her victim, like 
The Roman, when his dagger gave 
His Csesar to a bloody grave. 

John Bonython's eyebrows together are drawn 
With a fierce expression of wrath and scorn, — 
He hoarsely whispers, *'Ruth, beware! 

Is this the time to be playing the fool, — 
Crying over a paltry lock of hair. 

Like a love-sick girl at school? — 
Curse on it! — an Indian can see and hear: 
Away, — and prepare our evening cheer!" 

How keenly the Indian is watching now 
Her tearful eye and her varying brow. 
With a serpent eye, which kindles and burns, 
Like a fiery star in the upper air: 



280 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

On sire and daughter his fierce glance turns : — •• 
"Has my old white father a scalp to spare? 
For his young one loves the pale brown hair 

On the scalp of a Yengeese dog, far more 

Than Mogg Megone, or his wigwam floor : 
Go, — Mogg is wise: he will keep his land, — 
And Sagamore John, when he feels with his 
hand, 

Shall miss his scalp where it grew before." 

The moment's gust of grief is gone, — 

The lip is clenched, — the tears are still, — 
God pity thee, Ruth Bonython ! 

With what strength of will 
Are nature's feelings in thy breast. 
As with an iron hand, repressed ! 
And how, upon that nameless wo. 
Quick as the pulse can come and go. 
While shakes the unsteadfast knee, and yet 
The bosom heaves, — the eye is wet, — 
Has thy dark spirit power to stay 
The heart's own current on its way? 

And whence that baleful strength of guile, 
Which over that still working brow 
And tearful eye and cheek, can throw 

The ghostly mockery of a smile? 

"Is tne Sachem angry, — angry with Ruth, 
Because she cries with an ache in her toothy 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 281 

Which would make a Sagamore jump and cry, 
And look about with a woman's eye? 
No, — Ruth will sit in the Sachem's door 
And braid the mats for his wigwam floor, 
And broil his fish and tender fawn, 
And weave his wampum, and grind his corn, — 
For she loves the brave and the wise, and none 
Are braver and wiser than Mogg Megone!" 

The Indian's brow is clear once more: 

With grave calm face, and half-shut eye. 
He sits upon the wigwam floor, 

And watches Ruth go by, 
Intent upon her household care ; 

And, ever and anon, the while, 
Or on the maiden, or her fare, 
Which smokes in grateful promise there, 

Bestows his quiet smile. 

Ah, Mogg Megone! — what dreams are thine. 
But those which love's own fancies dress, — ■ 
The sum of Indian happiness! — 
A wigwam, where the warm sunshine 
Looks in among the groves of pine, — 
A stream where, round thy light canoe, 
The trout and salmon dart in view, 
And the fair girl, before thee now, 
Spreading thy mat with hand of snow, 



282 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Or plying, in the dews of morn, 
Her hoe amidst thy patch of corn, 
Or offering up, at eve, to thee 
Thy birchen dish of hominy! 

From the rude board of Bonython, 
Venison and suckatash have gone, — 
For long these dwellers of the wood 
Have felt the gnawing want of food. 
But untasted of Ruth is the frugal cheer, — 
With head averted, yet ready ear, 
She stands by the side of her austere sire, 
Feeding, at times, the unequal fire 

With the yellow knots of the pitch-pine tree. 
Whose flaring light, as they kindle, falls 
On the cottage-roof, and its black log walls. 

And over its inmates three. 

From Sagamore Bonython 's hunting flask 

The fire-water burns at the lip of Megone : 
"Will the Sachem hear what his father shall 
ask? 

Will he make his mark, that it may be known, 
On the speaking-leaf, that he gives the land, 
From the Sachem's own, to his father's hand?" 
The fire-water shines in the Indian's eyes, 

As he rises, the white man's bidding to do: 
*'Wuttamuttata — weekan! Mogg is wise, — 

For the water he drinks is strong and new, — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 283 

Mogg's heart is great! — will he shut his hand, 
When his father asks for a little land?" 
With unsteady fingers the Indian has drawn 

On the parchment the shape of a hunter's 
bow. 
"Boon water, — boon water, — Sagamore John! 

Wuttamuttata, — weekan! our hearts will 
grow ! ' * 
He drinks yet deeper, — he mutters low, — 
He reels on his bear-skin to and fro, — 
His head falls down on his naked breast, — 
He struggles and sinks to a drunken rest. 

"Humph — drunk as a beast!" — and Bonython's 
brow 
Is darker than ever with evil thought — 
"The fool has signed his warrant; but how 

And when shall the deed be wrought? 
Speak, Ruth! why, what the devil is there. 
To fix thy gaze in that empty air? — 
Speak, Ruth! by my soul, if I thought that 

tear, 
Which shames thyself and our purpose here, 
Were shed for that cursed and pale-faced dog, 
Whose green scalp hangs from the belt of 
Mogg, 
And whose beastly soul is in Satan's keep- 
ing,— 



284 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

This — this!" — he dashes his hand upon 
The rattling stock of his loaded gun, — 

*' Should send thee with him to do thy weep- 
ing!" 

*' Father!" — the eye of Bonython 
Sinks at that low, sepulchral tone, 
Hollow and deep, as it were spoken 

By the unmoving tongue of death, — 
Or from some statue's lip had broken, — 

A sound without a breath ! 
*' Father! — my life I value less 
Than yonder fool his gaudy dress ; 
And how it ends it matters not, 
By heart-break or by rifle-shot; 
But spare awhile the scoff and threat, — 
Our business is not finished yet." 

"True, true, my girl, — I only meant 
To draw up again the bow unbent. 
Harm thee, my Ruth! I only sought 
To frighten off thy gloomy thought; — 
Come, — let's be friends!" He seeks to clasp 

His daughter's cold, damp hand in his. 
Ruth startles from her father's grasp. 
As if each nerve and muscle felt, 
Instinctively, the touch of guilt, 

Through all their subtle sympathies. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 285 

He points her to the sleeping Mogg : 
**What shall be done with yonder dog? 
Scamman is dead, and revenge is thine, — 
The deed is signed and the land is mine : 

And this drunken fool is of use no more, 
Save as thy hopeful bridegroom, and sooth, 
'T were Christian mercy to finish him,' Ruth, 

Now, while he lies like a beast on our floor, — ■ 
If not for thine, at least for his sake, 

Rather than let the poor dog awake 
To drain my flask, and claim as his bride 
Such a forest devil to run by his side, — 

Such a Wetuomanit as thou wouldst make!" 

He laughs at his jest. Hush — what is there? — 
The sleeping Indian is striving to rise. 
With his knife in his hand, and glaring 
eyes! — 
*'Wagh! — Mogg will have the pale-face's hair. 
For his knife is sharp, and his fingers can 
help 
The hair to pull and the skin to peel, — 
Let him cry like a woman and twist like an eel, 
The great Captain Scamman must lose his 
scalp ! 
And Ruth, when she sees it, shall dance with 

Mogg." 
His eyes are fixed, — but his lips draw in, — 



286 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

With a low, hoarse chuckle, and fiendish grin. 
And he sinks again, like a senseless log. 

Ruth does not speak, — she does not stir; 
But she gazes down on the murderer, 
Whose broken and dreamful slumbers tell 
Too much for her ear of that deed of hell. " 
She sees the knife, with its slaughter red, 
And the dark fingers clenching the bear-skin 

bed! 
What thoughts of horror and madness whirl 
Through the burning brain of that fallen girH 



John Bonython lifts his gun to his eye, 

Its muzzle is close to the Indian's ear, — 
But he drops it again. "Some one may be 

nigh. 
And I would not that even the wolves should 

hear. ' ' 
He draws his knife from its deer- skin belt, — 
Its edge with his fingers is slowl}^ felt ; — 
Kneeling -down on one knee, by the Indian's. 

side, 
From his throat he opens the blanket wide; 
And twice or thrice he feebly essays 
A trembling hand with the knife to raise. 

"I cannot," — he mutters, — "did he not save 
My life from a cold and wintry grave, 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 287 

When the storm came down from Agioochook, 
And the north-wind howled, and the tree-tops 

shook, — 
And I strove, in the drifts of the rushing snow, 
Till my knees grew weak and I could not go, 
And I felt the cold to my vitals creep, 
And my heart's blood stiffen, and pulses sleep! 
I cannot strike him — Ruth Bonython ! 
In the devil's name, tell me — what's to be 

done?" 

Oh ! when the soul, once pure and high, 
Is stricken down from Virtue's sky. 
As with the downcast star of morn, 
Some gems, of light are with it drawn, — 
And, through its night of darkness, play 
Some tokens of its primal day, — 
Some lofty feelings linger still, — 

The strength to dare, the nerve to meet 

Whatever threatens with defeat 
Its all-indomitable will ! — 
But lack the mean of mind and heart, 

Though eager for the gains of crime, 

Oft, at their chosen place and time, 
The strength to bear their evil part ; 
And, shielded by their very Vice, 
Escape from Crime by Cowardice. 



288 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Ruth starts erect, — with bloodshot eye, 
And lips drawn tight across her teeth, 
Showing their locked embrace beneath, 
In the red firelight: — "Mogg must die! 
Give me the knife!" — The outlaw turns. 
Shuddering in heart and limb, away, — 
But, fitfully there, the hearth-fire burns, 

And he sees on the wall strange shadows 
play. 
A lifted arm, a tremulous blade, 
Are dimly pictured in light and shade. 

Plunging down in the darkness. Hark that 
cry! 
Again — and again — he sees it fall, — 
That shadowy arm down the lighted wall ! 

He hears quick footsteps — a shape flits by! — 
The door on its rusted hinges creaks : — 
*'Ruth — daughter Ruth!" the outlaw shrieks 
But no sound comes back, — ^he is standing 

alone 
By the mangled corpse of Mogg Megone ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 289 



MOGG MEGONE. 



PART II. 



'T is morning over Norridgewock, — 
On tree and wigwam, wave and rock. 
Bathed in the autumnal sunshine, stirred 
At intervals by the breeze and bird, 
And wearing all the hues which glow 
In heaven's own pure and perfect bow, 

That glorious picture of the air. 
Which summer's light-robed angel forms 
On the dark ground of fading storms, 

With pencil dipped in sunbeams there, - 
And, stretching out, on either hand, 
O'er all that wide and unshorn land. 

Till, weary of its gorgeousness. 
The aching and the dazzled eye 
Rests gladdened on the calm blue sky — 

Slumbers the mighty wilderness ! 
The oak, upon the windy hill. 
Its dark green burthen upward heaves — 
The hemlock broods above its rill, 

19 



290 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Its cone-like foliage darker still, 

While the white birch's graceful stem, 
And the rough walnut bough receives 
The sun upon their crowded leaves. 

Each colored like a topaz gem ; 

And the tall maple wears with them 
The coronal which autumn gives, 

The brief, bright sign of ruin near, 

The hectic of a dying year ! 

The hermit priest, who lingers now 
On the Bald Mountain's shrubless brow, 
The gray and thunder-smitten pile 
Which marks afar the Desert Isle, 

While gazing on the scene below, 
May half forget the dreams of home. 
That nightly with his slumber come, — 
The tranquil skies of Sunny France, 
The peasant's harvest song and dance. 
The vines around the hillsides wreathing 
.The soft airs 'mid their clusters breathing. 
The wings which dipped, the stars which shone 
Within thy bosom, blue Garrone ! 
And round the Abbey's shadowed wall. 
At morning spring and even- fall. 

Sweet voices in the still air singing, — 
The chant of many a holy hymn, — 

The solemn bell of vespers ringing, — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 291 

And hallowed torch-light falling dim 
On pictured saint and seraphim ! 
For here beneath him lies unrolled, 
Bathed deep in morning's flood of gold, 
A vision gorgeous as the dream 
Of the beatified may seem. 

When, as his Church's legends say, 
Borne upward in ecstatic bliss, 

The rapt enthusiast soars away 
Unto a brighter world than this : 
A mortal's glimpse beyond the pale, — 
A moment's lifting of the veil! 

Far eastward o'er the lovely bay, 
Penobscot's clustered wigwams lay; 
And gently from that Indian town 
The verdant hillside slopes adown, 
To where the sparkling waters play 

Upon the yellow sands below ; 
And shooting round the winding shores 

Of narrow capes, and isle which lie 

Slumbering to ocean's lullaby,^ 
With birchen boat and glancing oars. 

The red men to their fishing go ; 
While from their planting ground is borne 
The treasure of the golden corn, 
By laughing girls, whose dark eyes glow 
Wild through the locks which o'er them flow, 



I 



292 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

The wrinkled squaw, whose toil is done, 
Sits on her bear-skin in the sun, 
Watching the huskers with a smile 
For each full ear which swells the pile. 
And the old chief, who never more 
May bend the bow or pull the oar, 
Smokes gravely in his wigwam door, 
Or slowly shapes, with axe of stone. 
The arrow-head from flint and bone. 

Beneath the westward turning eye 
A thousand wooded islands lie, — 
Gems of waters ! — with each hue 
Of brightness set in ocean's blue. 
Each bears aloft its tuft of trees 

Touched by the pencil of the frost, 
And, with the motion of each breeze, 

A moment seen, — a moment lost, — 

Changing and blent, confused and tossed. 

The brighter with the darker crossed, 
Their thousand tints of beauty glow 
Down in the restless waves below. 

And tremble in the sunny skies, 
As if, from waving bough to bough, 

Flitted the birds of paradise. 
There sleep Placentia's group, — and there 
Pere Breteaux marks the hour of prayer; 
And there, beneath the sea-worn cliff, 

On which the Father's hut is seen, 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 293 

The Indian stays his rocking skiff, 

And peers the hemlock-bonghs between 
Half trembling, as he seeks to look 
Upon the Jesuit's Cross and Book. 
There, gloomily against the sky 
The Dark Isles rear their summits high; 
And Desert Rock, abrupt and bare, 
Lifts its gray turrets in the air, 
Seen from afar, like some strange hold 
Built by the ocean kings of old ; 
And, faint as smoke-wreath white and thin, 
Swells in the north vast Katadin : 
And, wandering from its marshy feet, 
The broad Penobscot comes to meet 

And mingle with his own bright bay. 
Slow sweep his dark and gathering floods, 
Arched over by the ancient woods. 
Which Time, in those dim solitudes, 

Wielding the dull axe of Decay 

Alone hath ever shorn away. 

Not thus, within the woods which hide 
The beauty of thy azure tide. 

And with their falling timbers block 
Thy broken currents, Kennebeck ! 
Gazes the white man on the wreck 

Of the down-trodden Norridgewock. — 
In one lone village hemmed at length, 
In battle shorn of half their strength, 



294 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Turned, like the panther in his lair, 
With his fast-flowing life-blood wet, 

For one last struggle of despair, 

Wounded and faint, but tameless yet! 

Unreaped, upon the planting lands, 
The scant, neglected harvest stands: 

No shout is there, — no dance — no song. 
The aspect of the very child 
Scowls with a meaning sad and wild 

Of bitterness and wrong. 
The almost infant Norridgewock 
Essays to lift the tomahawk; 
And plucks his father's knife away, 
To mimic, in his frightful play, 

The scalping of an English foe : 
Wreathes on his lip a horrid smile. 
Burns, like a snake's, his small eye, while 

Some bough or sapling meets his blow. 

The fisher, as he droys his line. 
Starts, when he sees the hazels quiver 
Along the margin of the river. 
Looks up and down the rippling tide. 
And grasps the firelock at his side. 
For Bomazeen from Tacconock 
Has sent his runners to Norridgewock, 
With tidings that Moulton and Harmon of 
York 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 295 

Far up the river have come : 
They have left their boats, — they have entered 

the wood, 
And filled the depths of the solitude 

With sound of the ranger's drum. 

On the brow of a hill, which slopes to meet 
The flowing river, and bathe its feet, — 
The bare-washed rock, and the drooping grass, 
And the creeping vine, as the waters pass, — 
A rude and unshapely chapel stands. 
Built up in that wild by unskilled hands ; 
Yet the traveler knows it a place of prayer, 
For the holy sign of the cross is there : 
And should he chance at that place to be. 

Of a Sabbath morn, or some hallowed day. 
When prayers are made and masses are said. 
Some for the living and some for the dead, 
Well might that traveler start to see 

The tall dark forms, that take their way 
From the birch canoe, on the river-shore, 
And the forest paths, to that chapel door; 
And marvel to mark the naked knees 

And the dusky foreheads bending there. 
And, stretching his long thin arms o'er these, 

In blessing and in prayer. 
Like a shrouded spectre, pale and tall. 
In his coarse, white vesture. Father Ralle. 



296 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Two forms are now in that chapel dim, 
The Jesuit, silent and sad and pale, 
Anxiously heeding some fearful tale, 
Which a stranger is telling him. 
That stranger's garb is soiled and torn, 
And wet with dew and loosely worn ; 
Her fair neglected hair falls down 
O'er cheeks with wind and sunshine brown 
Yet still, in that disordered face, 
The Jesuit's cautious eye can trace 
Those elements of former grace 
Which, half effaced, seem scarcely less. 
Even now, than perfect loveliness. 

With drooping head, and voice so low, 
That scarce it meets the Jesuit's ears, 

While through her clasped fingers flow. 

From the heart's fountain, hot and slow, 
Her penitential tears,— 

She tells the story of the wo 
And evil of her years. 

*'0h. Father, bear with me; my heart 
Is sick and death-like, and my brain 
Seems girdled with a fiery chain. 

Whose scorching links will never part, 
And never cool again. 

Bear with me while I speak, — but turn 
Away that gentle eye, the while, — 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 297 

The fires of guilt more fiercely burn 

Beneath its holy smile : 
For half I fancy I can see 
My mother's sainted look in thee. 

**My dear lost mother! sad and pale, 

Mournfully sinking day by day, 
And with a hold on life as frail 

As frosted leaves, that, thin and gray, 

Hang feebly on their parent spray, 
And tremble in the gale ; 
Yet watching o'er my childishness 
With patient fondness, — not the less 
For all the agony which kept 
Her blue eye wakeful, while I slept ; 
And checking every tear and groan 
That haply might have waked my own, 
And bearing still, without ofEence, 
My idle words, and petulance ; 

Reproving with a tear, — and, while 
The tooth of pain was keenly preying 
Upon her very heart, repaying 

My brief repentance with a smile. 

*'0h, in her meek, forgiving eye 

There was a brightness not of mirth, — - 

A light whose clear intensity 
Was borrowed not of earth. 

Along her cheek a deepening red 



298 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Told where the feverish hectic fed; 

And yet, each fatal token gave 
To the mild beauty of her face 
A newer and a dearer grace, 

Unwarning of the grave. 
'Twas like the hue which Autumn gives 
To yonder changed and dying leaves, 

Breathed over by his frosty breath ; 
Scarce can the gazer feel that this 
Is but the spoiler's treacherous kiss, 

The mocking-smile of Death ! 

""Sweet were the tales she used to tell, 

When summer's eve was dear to us, 
And, fading from the darkening dell. 
The glory of the sunset fell 

On giant Agamenticus, — 
Even as an altar lighting up 
The gray rocks of its rugged top, — 
When, sitting by our cottage wall. 
The murmur of the Saco's fall, 

And the south wind's expiring sighs 
Came, softly blending, on my ear. 
With the low tones I loved to hear : 

Tales of the pure, — the good, — the wise. 
The holy men and maids of old, 
In the all-sacred pages told ; — 
Of Rachel, stooped at Haran's fountains, 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 299 

Amid her father's thirsty flock, 
Beautiful to her kinsman seeming 
As the bright angels of his dreaming. 

On Padan-aram's holy rock; 
Of gentle Ruth, — and her who kept 

Her awful vigil on the mountains, 
By Israel's virgin daughters wept; 
Of Miriam, with her maidens, singing 

The song for grateful Israel meet. 
While every crimson wave was bringing 

The spoils of Egypt at her feet ; 
Of her, — Samaria's humble daughter. 

Who paused to hear, beside her well, 

Lessons of love and truth, which fell 
Softly as Shiloh's flowing water; 

And saw beneath his pilgrim guise, 
The Promised One, so long foretold 
By holy seer and bard of old. 

Revealed before her wondering eyes. 

"Slowly she faded. Day by day 
Her step grew weaker in our hall. 
And fainter, at each even-fall. 

Her sad voice died away. 
Yet on her thin, pale lip, the while. 
Sat Resignation's holy smile: 
And even my father checked his tread, 
And hushed his voice, beside her bed: 



300 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Beneath the calm and sad rebuke 
Of her meek eye's imploring look, 
The scowl ot hate his brow forsook, 

And, in his stern and gloomy eye, 
At times, a few unwonted tears 
Wet the dark lashes, which for years 

Hatred and pride had kept so dry. 

"Calm as a child to slumber soothed, 
As if an angel's hand had smoothed 

The still, white features into rest, 
Silent and cold, without a breath 

To stir the drapery on her breast 
Pain, with its keen and poisoned fang, 
The horror of the mortal pang, 
The suffering look her brow had worn. 
The fear, the strife, the anguish gone,- 

She slept at last in death ! 

*'Oh, tell me, father, can the dead 
Walk on the earth, and look on us, 

And lay upon the living's head 
Their blessing or their curse? 

For, oh, last night she stood by me. 

As I lay beneath the woodland tree!" 

The Jesuit crosses himself in awe, — 
*'Jesu! what was it my daughter saw?' 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 301 

*'She came to me last night. 

The dried leaves did not feel her tread 
She stood by me in the wan moonlight, 

In the white robes of the dead! 
Pale, and very mournfully 
She bent her light form over me. 
I heard no sound, — I felt no breath 
Breathe o'er me from that face of death 
Its blue eyes rested on my own, 
Rayless and cold as eyes of stone ; 
Yet, in their fixed, unchanging gaze, 
Something, which spoke of early days, — 
A sadness in their quiet glare. 
As if love's smile were frozen there, — 
Came o'er me with an icy thrill; — 
Oh God, I feel its presence still!" 

The Jesuit makes the holy sign, — 
*'How passed the vision, daughter mine?" 

*'A11 dimly in the wan moonshine. 
As a wreath of mist will twist and twine, 
And scatter, and melt into the light, — 
So scattering, — melting on my sight, 

The pale, cold vision passed ; 
But those sad eyes were fixed on mine 

Mournfully to the last." 



302 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

*'God help thee, daughter, tell me why 
That spirit passed before thine eye?" 

"Father, I know not, save it be 

That deeds of mine have summoned her 
From the unbreathing- sepulchre, 
To leave her last rebuke with me. 
Ah, woe for me ! my mother died 
Just at the moment when I stood 
Close on the verge of womanhood, 
A child in everything beside ; 
And when alas I needed most 
Her gentle counsels, they were lost. 

* ' My father lived a stormy life, 
Of frequent change and daily strife ; 
And, — God forgive him ! left his child 
To feel, like him, a freedom wild; 
To love the red man's dwelling-place. 

The birch boat on his shaded floods, 
The wild excitement of the chase 

Sweeping the ancient woods, 
The camp-fire, blazing on the shore 

Of the still lakes, the clear stream, where 

The idle fisher sets his wear, 
Or angles in the shade, far more 
Than that restraining awe I felt 
Beneath my gentle mother's care, 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 303 

When nightly at her knee I knelt, 
With childhood's simple prayer. 

*' There came a change. The wild, glad mood 

Of unchecked freedom passed. 
Amid the ancient solitude 
Of unshorn grass and waving wood, 

And waters glancing bright and fast, 
A softened voice was in my ear. 
Sweet as those lulling sounds and fine 
The hunter lifts his head to hear, 
Now far and faint, now full and near — 
The murmur of the wind-swept pine. 
A manly form was ever nigh, 
A bold, free hunter, with an eye 
Whose dark, keen glance had power to wake 
Both fear and love, — to awe and charm ; 

'Twas as the wizard rattlesnake, 
Whose evil glances lure to harm — 
Whose cold and small glittering eye, 
And brilliant coil, and changing dye, 
Draw, step by step, the gazer near. 
With drooping wing and cry of fear, 
Yet powerless all to turn away, 
A conscious, but a willing prey! 

*'The world that I had known went by 
As a vain shadow. — On my eye 

There rose a new and dreamful one. 



304 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

'Twas like the cloudy realms which lie 
Shadowy and brief, on autumn's sky, 
Before the setting sun. 

Oh, Father, scarce to God above 

With deeper trust, with stronger love, 

No human heart was ever lent, 

No human knee was ever bent, 

Than I, before a human shrine, 

As mortal and as frail as mine. 

With heart, and soul, and mind, and form, 

Knelt madly to a fellow-worm. 

"Full soon, upon that dream of sin. 

An awful light came bursting in. 

The shrine was cold, at which I knelt — 

The idol of that shrine was gone; 
A humble thing of shame and guilt, 

Outcast, and spurned, and lone. 
Wrapt in the shadows of my crime, 

With withering heart and burning brain, 

And tears that fell like fiery rain, 
I passed a fearful time. 

"There came a voice — it checked the tear- 
In heart and soul it wrought a change; — 

My father's voice was in my ear; 
It whispered of revenge ! 

A new and fiercer feeling swept 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. S05 

Each lingering tenderness away : 
And tiger passions, which had slept 

In childhood's better day, 
Unknown, unfelt, arose at length 
In all their own demoniac strength. 

*'A youthful warrior of the wild, 
By words deceived, by smiles beguiled, 
Of crime the cheated instrument. 
Upon our fatal errands went. 

Through camp and town and wilderness 
He tracked his victim ; and, at last. 
Just when the tide of hate had passed, 
And milder thoughts came warm and fast. 
Exulting at my feet he cast 
The bloody token of success. 
*'Oh God! with what an awful power 

I saw the buried past uprise, 
And gather, in a single hour. 

Its ghost-like memories ! 
And then I felt — alas ! too late — 
That underneath the mask of hate, 
That shame and guilt and wrong had thrown 
O'er feelings which they might not own, 

The heart's wild love had known no change; 
And still, that deep and hidden love. 
With its first fondness, wept above 

The victim of its own revenge ! 

20 



306 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

There lay the fearful scalp, and there 
The blood was on its pale brown hair! 
I thought not of the victim's scorn, 

I thought not of his baleful guile, 
My deadly wrong, my outcast name, 
The characters of sin and shame 
On heart and forehead drawn ; 

I only saw that victim's smile. 
The still, green places where we met, — 
The moonlit branches, dewy wet ; 
I only felt, I only heard 
The greeting and the parting word, — 
The smile, — the embrace, — the tone which 

made 
An Eden of the forest shade. 

'''And oh, with what a loathing eye, 

With what a deadly hate, and deep, 
I saw that Indian murderer lie 

Before me in his drunken sleep! 
What though for me the deed was done, 
And words of mine had sped him on ! 
Yet when he murmured, as he slept, 

The horrors of that deed of blood, 
The tide of utter madness swept 

O'er brain and bosom, like a flood. 
And, father, with this hand of mine — " 

*'Ha! what didst thou?" the Jesuit cries. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 307 

Shuddering-, as smitten with sudden pain, 
And shading, with one thin hand, his eyes. 

With the other he makes the holy sign — 
* ' I smote him as I would a worm ; — 

With heart as steeled, with nerves as firm : 
He never woke again!" 

** Woman of sin and blood and shame, 
Speak, — I would know that victim's name." 

*' Father," she gasped, "a chieftain, known 
As Saco's Sachem, — Mogg Megonel'* 

Pale priest ! What proud and lofty dreams. 
What keen desires, what cherished schemes. 
What hopes, that time may not recall, 
Are darkened by that chieftain's falH 
Was he not pledged, by cross and vow^ 

To lift the hatchet of his sire. 
And, round his own, the Church's foe. 

To light the avenging fire? 
Who now the Tarrantine shall wake 
For thine and for the Church's sake? 

Who summon to the scene. 
Of conquest and unsparing strife. 
And vengeance dearer than his life. 

The fiery-soul ed Castine? 



308 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Three backward steps the Jesuit takes,— 
His long^ thin frame as ague shakes ; 

Hate — fearful hate — is in his eye, 
As from his lips these words of fear 
Fall hoarsely on the maiden's ear, — 
**The soul that sinneth shall surely die!" 

She stands, as stands the stricken deer, 
Checked midway in the fearful chase, 

When bursts, upon its eye and ear, 

The gaunt, gray robber, baying near. 
Between it and its hiding-place ; 

While still behind, with yell and blow, 

Sweeps, like a storm, the coming foe. 

'''Save me, O holy man!" — her cry 
Fills all the void, as if a tongue. 
Unseen, from rib and rafter rung, 

'Thrilling with mortal agony; 

Her hands are clasping the Jesuit's knee, 
And her eye looks fearfully into his own ; — 
Off, woman of sin ! — nay, touch not me 
With those fingers of blood; — begone!" 

With a gesture of horror, he spurns the form 

.That writhes at his feet like a trodden worm 

Ever thus the spirit must 

Guilty in the sight of Heaven, 
With a keener woe be riven. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 309 

For its weak and sinful trust 
In the strength of human dust ; 

And its anguish still afresh, 
For each vain reliance given 

To the failing arm of flesh. 



310 WHITTIER'S POEMS, 



MOGG MEGONE, 



PART III. 

Gloomily against the wall 

Leans thy working forehead, Rallef 

111 thy troubled musing fit 

The holy quiet of a breast 

With the Dove of Peace at rest, 
Sweetly brooding over it. 
Thoughts are thine which have no part 
With the meek and pure of heart, 
Undisturbed by outward things, 
Resting in the heavenly shade 
By the overspreading wings 

Of the Blessed Spirit made. 
Thoughts of strife and hate and wrong 
Sweep thy heated brain along, — 
Fading hopes for whose success 

It were sin to breathe a prayer ; 
Thoughts which Heaven may never bless ,- 

Fears which darken to despair. 
Hoary priest ! thy dream is done 
Of a hundred red tribes won 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 311 

To the pale of "H0I3- Church;" 
And the heretic o'erthrown, 
And his name no longer known, 
And thy weary brethren turning, 
Joyful from their years of mourning, 
'Twixt the altar and the porch. 

Hark! what sudden sound is heard 

In the wood and in the sky, 
Shriller than the scream of bird, — 

Than the trumpet's clang more high! 
Every wolf-cave of the hills, — 

Forest arch and mountain gorge, 

Rock and dell, and river verge, — 
With an answering echo thrills. 
Well does the Jesuit know that cry, 
Which summons the Norridgewock to die. 
And tells that the foe of his flock is nigh. 
He listens, and hears the rangers come, 
With loud hurrah, and jar of drum, 
And hurrying feet (for the chase is hot) , 
And the short, sharp sound of rifle shot, 
And taunt and menace, — answered well 
By the Indians' mocking cry and yell, — 
The bark of dogs, — the squaw's mad scream, — 
The dash of paddles along the stream, — 
The whistle of shot as it cuts the leaves 
Of the maples around the church's eaves — 



312 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

And the gride of hatchets, at random thrown, 
On wigwam-log and tree and stone. 

Black with the grime of paint and dust, 

Spotted and streaked with human gore, 
A grim and naked head is thrust 

Within the chapel-door. 
"Ha — Bomazeen! — In God's name say, 
What mean these sounds of bloody fray?" 
Silent, the Indian points his hand 

To where across the echoing glen 
Sweep Harmon's dreaded ranger-band, 

And Moulton with his men. 
'■'Where are thy warriors, Bomazeen? 
** Where are De Rouville and Castine, 
And where the braves of Sawga's queen?" 
"Let my father find the winter snow 
Which the sun drank up long moons ago! 
Under the falls of Tacconock, 
The wolves are eating the Norridgewock ; 
Castine with his wives lies closely hid 
Like a fox in the woods of Pemaquid ! 
On Sawga's banks the man of war 
Sits in his wigwam like a squaw, — 
Squando has fled, and Mogg Megone, 
Struck by the knife of Sagamore John, 
Lies stiff and stark and cold as stone." 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 313 

Fearfully over the Jesuit's face, 

Of a thousand thoughts, trace after trace, 

Like swift cloud- shadows, each other chase, 

One instant, his fingers grasp his knife. 

For a last vain struggle for cherished life, — 

The next, he hurls the blade away, 

And kneel at his altar's foot to pray; 

Over his beads his fingers stray. 

And he kisses the cross, and calls aloud 

On the Virgin and her Son ; 

For terrible thoughts his memory crowd 

Of evil seen and done, 
Of scalps brought home by his savage flock 
From Casco and Sawga and Sagadahock, 

111 the Church's service won. 

No shrift the gloomy savage brooks, 

As scowling on the priest he looks : 

* ' Cowesass — co wesass — tawhich wessaseen ? 

Let my father look upon Bomazeen, — 

My father's heart is the heart of a squaw. 

But mine is so hard that it does not thaw : 

Let my father ask his God to make 

A dance and a feast for a great sagamore, 
When he paddles across the western lake, 

With his dogs and his squaws to the spirit's 
shore. 
Cowesass — cowesass — tawhich wessaseen ? 
Let my father die like Bomazeen!" 



314 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Through the chapel's narrow doors, 

And through each window in the walls, 
Round the priest and warrior pours 

The deadly shower of English balls; 
Low on his cross the Jesuit falls; 
While at his side the Norridgewock, 
With failing breath, essays to mock 
And menace yet the hated foe, — 
Shakes his scalp-trophies to and fro 

Exultingl)^ before their eyes, — 
Till cleft and torn by shot and blow, 

The mighty Sachem dies. 

*'So fare all eaters of the frog! 
Death to the Babylonish dog! 

Down with the beast of Rome!" 
Yf ith shouts like these, around the dead, 
Unconscious on their bloody bed, 

The rangers crowding come. 
Brave men! the dead priest cannot hear 
The unfeeling taunt, — the brutal jeer; — 
Spurn — for he sees ye not — in wrath, 
The symbol of your Savior's death ; — 

Tear from his death-grasp, in your zeal, 
And trample, as a thing accursed, 
The cross he cherished in the dust . 

The dead man cannot feel ! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 315 

Brutal alike in deed and word, 

With callous heart and hand of strife, 
How like a fiend may man be made, 
Plying the foul and monstrous trade 

Whose harvest-field is human life, 
Whose sickle is the reeking sword ! 
Quenching, with reckless hand in blood, 
Sparks kindled by the breath of God ; 
Urging the deathless soul, unshriven, 

Of open guilt, or secret sin. 
Before the bar of that pure Heaven 

The holy only enter in ! 
Oh! by the widow's sore distress, 
The orphan's wailing wretchedness. 
By Virtue struggling in the accursed 
Embraces of puUuting Lust, 
By the fell discord of the Pit, 
And the pained souls that people it, 
And by the blessed peace which fills 

The Paradise of God forever. 
Resting on all its holy hills. 

And flowing with its crystal river, — 
Let Christian hands no longer bear 

In triumph on his crimson car 

The foul and idol god of war ; 
No more the purple wreaths prepare 
To bind amid his snaky hair ; 
No Christian bard his glories tell, 



316 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Nor Christian tongues his praises swell. 
Through the gun-«cnoke wreathing white, 
Glimpses on the soldier's sight 
A thing of human shape I ween, 
For a moment onl)^ seen, 
With its loose hair backward streaming, 
And its eyeballs madly gleaming, 
Shrieking, like a soul in pain, 

From the world of light and breath, 
Hurrying to its place again. 

Spectre-like it vanisheth ! 

Wretched girl ! one eye alone 
Notes the way which thou hast gone. 
That great Eye, which slumbers never, 
Watching o'er a lost world ever. 
Tracks thee over vale and mountain, 
By the gushing forest- fountain. 
Plucking from its vine its fruit, 
Searching for the ground-nut's root;; 
Peering in the she- wolf's den. 
Wading through the marshy fen, 
Where the sluggish water-snake 
Basks beside the sunny brake, 
Coiling in his slimy bed. 
Smooth and cold against thy tread, — 
Purposeless, thy mazy way 
Threading through the lingering day. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 317 

And at night securely sleeping 

Where the dogwood's dews are weeping! 

Still, though earth and man discard thee, 
Doth thy heavenly Father guide thee. 
He who spared the guilty Cain, 

Even when a brother's blood, 

Crying in the ear of God, 
Gave the earth its primal stain, — 
He whose mercy ever liveth, 
Who repenting guilt forgiveth, 
And the broken heart receiveth, 
Wanderer of the wilderness, 

Haunted, guilty, crazed, and wild, 
He regardeth thy distress, 

And careth for his sinful child. 



'Tis spring-time on the eastern hills! 
Like torrents gush the summer rills : 
Through winter's moss and dry dead leaves 
The bladed grass revives and lives. 
Pushes the mouldering waste away. 
And glimpses to the April day. 
In kindly shower and sunshine bud 
The branches of the dull gray wood ; 
Out from its sunned and sheltered nooks 
The blue eye of the violet looks ; 



318 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

The southwest wind is warmly blowing^. 
And odors from the springing grass, 
The sweet birch and the sassafras, 

Are with it on its errands going. 

A band is marching through the wood 
Where rolls the Kennebec his flood, — 
The warriors of the wilderness, 
Painted, and in their battle dress ; 
And with them on whose bearded cheek, 
And white and wrinkled brow bespeak 

A wanderer from the shores of France. 
A few long locks of scattering snow 
Beneath a battered morion flow. 
And from the rivets of the vest 
Which girds in steel his ample breast^ 

The slanted sunbeams glance. 
In the harsh outlines of his face 
Passion and sin have left their trace ; 
Yet, save worn brow and thin gray hair. 
No signs of weary age are there. 

His step is firm, his eye is keen. 
Nor years in broil and battle spent, 
Nor toil, nor wounds, nor pain have bent 

The lordly frame of old Castine. 

No purpose now of strife and blood 
Urges the hoary veteran on : 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 319 

The fire of conquest, and the mood 

Of chivalry have gone. 
A mournful task is his, — to lay 

With the earth the bones of those 
Who perished in that fearful day, 
When Norridgewock became the prey 
Of all-unsparing foes. 
Sad are thy music thoughts, Castine, 
Of the old warrior Bomazeen, 
So prompt to summon at thy call 

Of need, the gleaming tomahawks 

Of the now wasted Norridgewocks, 
And him — the dearest loved of all, 
Thy bosom friend — the martyr Ralle ! 

Hark ! from the foremost of the band 

Suddenly bursts the Indian yell ; 
For now on the very spot they stand 

Where the Norridgewocks fighting fell. 
No wigwam smoke is curling there ; 
The very earth is scorched and bare : 
And they pause and listen to catch a sound 

Of breathing life, — but there comes not one, 
Save the fox's bark and the rabbit's bound; 
And here and there, on the blackened ground, 

White bones are glistening in the sun. 
And where the house of prayer arose, 
And the holy hymn at daylight's close, 
And the aged priest stood up to bless ; 



320 WH'ITTIER'S POEMS. 

The children of the wilderness, 

There is naught save ashes sodden and dank ; 
And the birchen boats of the Norridgewock, 
Tethered to tree and stump and rock, 

Rotting along the river bank ! 

Blessed Mary! who is she 

Leaning against that maple-tree? 

The sun upon her face burns hot, 

But the fixed eyelid moveth not; 

The squirrel's chirp is shrill and clear 

From the dry bough above her ear; 

Dashing from rock and root its spray, 
Close at her feet, the river rushes; 
The blackbird's wing against her brushes, 
And sweetly through the hazel-bushes 
The robin's mellow music gushes; — 

God save her! will she sleep alway? 

Castine hath bent him over the sleeper : 

**Wake, daughter, — wake!" — but she stirs 

no limb : 
The eye that looks on him is fixed and dim ; 
And the sleep she is sleeping shall be no 
deeper, 
Until the angel's oath is said, 
And the final blast of the trump gone forth 
To the graves of the sea and the graves of 
earth. 
Ruth Bonython is dead! 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 321 



THE VAUDOIS TEACHER. 

**0 lady fair, these silks of mine are beautiful 

and rare, — 
The richest web of the Indian loom, which 

Beauty's self might wear; 
And those pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, 

with whose radiant light they vie; 
I have brought them with me a weary way, — 

will my gentle lady buy?" 

And the lady smiled on the worn old man 

through the dark and clustering curls 
Which veiled her brow as she bent to view his 

silks and glittering pearls; 
And she placed their price in the old man's 

hand, and lightly turned away, 
But she paused at the wanderer's earnest call, 

— "My gentle lady, stay! 

"O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer 

lustre flings 
Than the diamond flash of the jeweled crown 

on the lofty brow of kings, — 

21 



322 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose 

virtue shall not decay, 
Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a 

blessing on thy way!" 

The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where 

her form of grace was seen, 
Where her eyes shone clear, and her dark locks 

waved their clasping pearls between. 
"Bring forth thy pearls of exceeding worth, 

thou traveler gray and old, — 
And name the price of thy precious gem and 

my pages shall count thy gold." 

The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow, 

as a small and meagre book, 
Unchased with gold or diamond gem, from his 

folding robe he took ! 
*'Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it 

prove as such to thee! 
Nay — keep thy gold — I ask it not, for the word 

of God is free!" 

The hoary traveler went his way, but the gift 

he left behind 
Hath had its pure and perfect work on that 

high-born maiden's mind, 
And she hath turned from the pride of sin to 

the lowliness of truth. 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 323 

And given her human heart to God in its 
beautiful hour of youth ! 

And she hath left the gray old halls, where r.n 

evil faith had power, 
The courtly knights of her father's train, and 

the maidens of her bower; 
And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by 

lordly feet untrod, 
Where the poor and needy of earth are rich in 

the perfect love of God! 



324 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 



THE PRISONER FOR DEBT. 

Look on him — through his dungeon grate, 

Feebly and cold, the morning light 
Comes stealing round him, dim, and late, 

As if it loathed the sight. 
Reclining on his strawy bed. 
His hand upholds his drooping head, — 
His bloodless cheek is seamed and hard, 
Unshorn his gray, neglected beard; 
And o'er his bony fingers flow 
His long, disheveled locks of snow. 

No grateful fire before him glows, — 
And yet the winter's breath is chill; 

And o'er his half-clad person goes 
The frequent ague thrill! 

Silent, save ever and anon, 

A sound, half murmur and half groan 

Forces apart the painful grip 

Of the old sufferer's bearded lip; 

O sad and crushing is the fate 

Of old age chained and desolate ! 

Just God! why lies that old man there? 



WHITTIER'S POEMS. 325 

A murderer shares his prison bed, 
Whose eyeballs, through his horrid hair, 

Gleam on him, fierce and red ; 
And the rude oath and heartless jeer 
Fall ever on his loathing ear, 
And, or in wakefulness or sleep. 
Nerve, flesh, and fibre thrill and creep 
Whene'er that ruffian's tossing limb, 
Crimson with murder, touches him. 

What has the gray-haired prisoner done? 

Has murder stained his hands with gore? 
Not so; his crime's a fouler one: 

God made the old man poor ! 
For this he shares a felon's cell, — 
The fittest earthly type of hell ! 
For this — the boon for which he poured 
His young blood on the invader's sword, 
And counted light the fearful cost, — 
His blood-gained liberty is lost ! 

And so, for such a place of rest, 

Old prisoner, poured thy blood as rain 
On Concord's field, and Bunker's crest. 
Look forth, thou man of many scars, 
Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars: 
It must be joy, in sooth, to see 
Yon monument* upreared to thee, — 

*Bunker Hill Monument. 



326 WHITTIER'S POEMS. 

Piled granite and a prison cell,— 
The land repays thy service well ! 
Go, ring the bells and fire the guns, 

And fling the starry banner out ; 
Shout "Freedom" till your lisping ones 

Give back their cradle-shout ; 
Let boasted eloquence declaim 
Of honor, liberty, and fame ; 
Still let the poet's strain be heard, 
With "glory" for each second word, 
And everything with breath agree 
To praise ' ' our glorious liberty ! ' ' 

And when the patriot cannon jars, 
That prison's cold and gloomy wall, 

And through its grates the stripes and stars 
Rise on the wind and fall, — 

Think ye that prisoner's aged ear 

Rejoices in the general cheer? 

Think ye his dim and failing eye 

Is kindled at your pageantry? 

Sorrowing of soul, and chained of limb, 

What is your carnival to him? 

Down with the law that binds him thus ! 

Unworthy freemen, let it find 
No refuge from the withering curse 

Of God and human kind ! 
Open the prisoner's living tomb, 



WHITTIER^S POEMS. 327 

And usher from its brooding gloom 

The victims of your savage code 

To the free sun and air of God ! 

No longer dare as crime to brand 

The chastening of th' Almighty's hand. 

THE END. 



AUG 13 1900 



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